White House Says Ramaswamy to Step Down From DOGE

Businessman Vivek Ramaswamy arrives for the inauguration of President-elect Donald Trump in the U.S. Capitol Rotunda in Washington on Jan. 20, 2025. Kenny Holston-Pool/Getty Images

Businessman and former Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy will not be part of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) led by X owner Elon Musk, a spokesperson confirmed.

“Vivek Ramaswamy played a critical role in helping us create DOGE,” Anna Kelly, a spokesperson for the commission, said in a statement. “He intends to run for elected office soon, which requires him to remain outside of DOGE, based on the structure that we announced today. We thank him immensely for his contributions over the last 2 months and expect him to play a vital role in making America great again.”

Trump had named both Ramaswamy and Musk to head DOGE, which has been billed as an advisory group that will launch a cost-cutting effort in the federal government. Over the weekend, there were reports citing unnamed sources saying Ramaswamy would not be part of the initiative.

During his inaugural address on Jan. 20, Trump announced he would create DOGE to eliminate waste in the federal government.

“To restore competence and effectiveness to our federal government, my administration will establish the brand new Department of Government Efficiency,” Trump said in his inaugural speech.

Soon after he was inaugurated, DOGE and the Trump administration were hit with at least four separate lawsuits from multiple groups. Some sought records of correspondence among Musk, Ramaswamy, and government officials, while others sought to make sure DOGE complies with federal government regulations.

“DOGE’s operations during the transition period were shrouded in secrecy,” a lawsuit filed by progressive group Public Citizen reads. “Media reporting indicates that DOGE took steps outside of public view to begin operating immediately after President Trump’s inauguration, and that DOGE will be embedded within the White House, OMB (Office of Management and Budget), and other federal agencies very soon.”

During a speech on Jan. 20, Musk made a passing statement on DOGE, saying only that he wants to “bring DOGE to Mars” under the Trump administration.

“I’m super fired up for the future,” he said.

In a recent interview, Musk said that he hopes that DOGE can cut up to $2 trillion in federal spending.

Ramaswamy did not speak at the same event as Musk and hasn’t issued any public comments on the decision.

In late December 2024, Ramaswamy and Musk courted controversy with comments they posted on X regarding H-1B visas. Ramaswamy had written that U.S. companies look to other countries for labor and was critical of American culture for what he said was fostering “mediocrity over excellence.”

Citing popular TV shows, Ramaswamy said: “That doesn’t start in college, it starts YOUNG. A culture that celebrates the prom queen over the math olympiad champ, or the jock over the valedictorian, will not produce the best engineers.”

Some Republicans and Trump supporters, including former Rep. Matt Gaetz, were critical of the posts made by Ramaswamy and Musk. Musk had suggested in a post that the United States needed to “double” the number of its engineers.

“We welcomed the tech bros when they came running our way to avoid the 3rd grade teacher picking their kid’s gender—and the obvious Biden/Harris economic decline,” Gaetz wrote in a post on Jan. 16. “We did not ask them to engineer an immigration policy.”

Speaking to reporters on New Year’s Eve, Trump indicated that he backs the H-1B visa program and said that the country needs “competent people.”

“We need smart people coming into our country,” he said. “We need a lot of people coming in. We’re going to have jobs like we’ve never had before.”

The Associated Press contributed to this report.