Trump taps Musk to ‘save trillions’ in war on waste

AFP | Washington

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Republican White House candidate Donald Trump unveiled a plan to install tech billionaire Elon Musk at the head of a government efficiency commission to eliminate “trillions” of dollars in wasteful spending.

The Tesla and SpaceX CEO has emerged as a major voice in US politics but is accused of turning the social media platform Twitter, now known as X, into a megaphone for rightwing conspiracy theories since acquiring it in 2022.

Trump told business executives at a speech in New York that Musk -- the world’s richest man, according to Forbes -- would oversee a “complete financial and performance audit of the entire federal government” in a second Trump administration.

“As the first order of business, this commission will develop an action plan to totally eliminate fraud and improper payments within six months. This will save trillions of dollars,” he said.

The former president is in a knife-edge election race against Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris, who has been setting out her own economic vision ahead of a high-stakes televised presidential debate between the pair on Tuesday.

Trump -- whose administration oversaw an $8.2 trillion rise in the national debt, almost twice as much as President Joe Biden’s -- has not publicly identified any of the savings and experts are skeptical about the size of the savings.

“By definition, this would mean Trump supports cutting Social Security, Medicare, or veterans benefits,” Bharat Ramamurti, a former economic official in Joe Biden’s White House, posted.