- Trump picked Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy to co-lead DOGE, a new government efficiency commission.
- Their aim is to cut government spending, and one idea they’ve floated is to ax federal agencies.
- Millions of Americans are employed by the US government. Here’s how the agencies break down and what workers make.
Elon Musk’s government efficiency commission could end up costing some federal workers their jobs.
As he and former GOP presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy begin to outline their priorities as leaders of the Trump-created Department of Government Efficiency, one of them seems to be eliminating government agencies.
Most recently, Ramaswamy told Fox News, “We expect certain agencies to be deleted outright.”
Over 2 million Americans collect their paychecks from the federal government, so Business Insider looked into which agencies employ the most people and what they pay on average.
When asked about areas the commission would prioritize for spending cuts, Karoline Leavitt, a spokesperson for the Trump-Vance transition, previously told BI: “The American people re-elected President Trump by a resounding margin giving him a mandate to implement the promises he made on the campaign trail. He will deliver.”
The US government is the largest employer in the country
The US Office of Personnel Management showed eight cabinet-level agencies, which are at the center of the executive branch and have heads that report directly to the president, had over 100,000 civilian employees as of March.
Almost half a million people were employed in the Department of Veterans Affairs, while the Department of Education had just over 4,000. The Treasury Department had over 100,000 employees as of March. The overwhelming majority of those — about 94,000 — were employed in the Internal Revenue Service.
Most departments had six-figure average salaries, with the Department of Education and the Department of Energy having the highest averages.
During Ramaswamy’s Sunday appearance on Fox News, he said, “We expect mass reductions in force in areas of the federal government that are bloated.”
While neither Trump, Musk, nor Ramaswamy has made clear which departments could be on the chopping block, Trump has targeted the Department of Education in the past, saying in 2023: “One other thing I’ll be doing very early in the administration is closing up the Department of Education in Washington DC, and sending all education and education work and needs back to the states.”
Musk said during October remarks that while the commission’s goal is to cut spending by reducing head count, he would consider giving impacted workers “very long severances” that could amount to two years’ pay.
“The point is not to be cruel or to have people not be able to pay their mortgage or anything,” Musk said during his October remarks. “We just have too many people in the government sector, and they could be more productive elsewhere.”
The US Office of Personnel Management wrote on its website that “severance pay is authorized for full-time and part-time employees who are involuntarily separated from Federal service and who meet other conditions of eligibility.” A spokesperson for the office told BI that the severance policy is up to date, and it “cannot comment on the actions of future administrations.”
DOGE is not an official government agency. Past commissions on government spending, like the Grace Commission under former President Ronald Reagan, gave the president and Congress advice on areas to cut. The two leaders of the initiative have started to detail the areas of government spending they’re looking to target.
While DOGE can advise Trump on agencies to cut, the president-elect cannot act on it alone — making major changes to federal agencies would require congressional approval.
Plus, DOGE’s goals could still change. It’s unclear how exactly the commission will function and whether Congress will approve Musk and Ramaswamy’s spending cuts. BI previously reported that the US spent $6.75 trillion in fiscal year 2024. With Social Security, health programs, and Medicare topping the spending list, they could be on the commission’s chopping block. However, Medicare and Social Security are forms of mandatory spending that would require legislation to change.
Are you employed by the federal government and have a story to share? Reach out to these reporters at asheffey@businessinsider.com and mhoff@businessinsider.com.
