Vivek Ramaswamy’s marching orders: Cut trillions for Trump

The biotech company founder, a self-described alpha dog, will be one of two people leading Donald Trump’s future Department of Government Efficiency. Elon Musk, the world’s richest man and the president-elect’s new best friend, is the other.

“There aren’t that many people who I can look up to," Ramaswamy, 39, said in an interview Thursday when asked about his Musk relationship. “It’s hard to find people who have been on similar life trajectories."

He said both men have spent much of this week at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago compound in Florida.

Ramaswamy said he got to know Musk, 53, more than a year ago as a candidate challenging Trump for the Republican presidential nomination. “From the very first time we met, the ideas that we are now pursuing were born out of our very first in-person interactions," he said.

“Elon and I, for each of our reasons, felt like we were the right duo to do this," Ramaswamy said. “We like each other. We’re friends. We work well together."

Their effort, which will operate outside the formal confines of the federal government, will seek to cut spending, eliminate regulations and restructure federal agencies. It will go by the acronym DOGE, a nod to a cryptocurrency favored by Musk.

“We concluded that if this job were ever going to be done, it had to be done by outsiders and in many ways from the outside," Ramaswamy said. “Politicians for a long time have talked about downsizing the federal government. Doing it in the standard way wasn’t going to work."

Musk, who emerged as a chief Trump ally and major super PAC donor, has suggested he could cut at least $2 trillion, though he didn’t specify whether he meant annually or over time.

“Stay tuned," Ramaswamy said, when asked about the $2 trillion figure.

A cut that large would be challenging because most big-ticket items are hard to cut: The U.S. must make interest payments on its debt, and Trump has promised to protect Social Security and Medicare benefits. Hitting Musk’s target would require steep cuts elsewhere, which would almost certainly bring pushback from lawmakers on either side of the aisle.

Ramaswamy declined to engage on specifics about DOGE, including whether he and Musk would pay the salaries of those who work with them in the new department. He said some federal workers should be worried about their jobs.

“The job of the federal government is not to provide job security, but the point is also not to be punitive to people who work there," Ramaswamy said. “The point is to thin out bureaucracy, not in a manner that is in any way blaming federal employees at the level of individuals, most of whom genuinely want to, presumably, do a good job of serving their country."

While there is no shortage of self-assurance in politics, Ramaswamy is at the high end of the scale. That brashness has been central to his business success and a hallmark of his brief political career.

“I have to be leading from the front," he told The Wall Street Journal amid an Iowa blizzard earlier this year when asked about potentially being Trump’s vice presidential running mate.

“I have something that VPs don’t have. I have this thing called independent opinions," Ramaswamy continued. “We have a historical national tradition of potted plants in that role, so I certainly wouldn’t be somebody who fit that pattern."

He went on to say he would have a job for Trump “as an adviser" in his White House. That job offer, delivered despite dramatically trailing in the polls, came just three days before Ramaswamy would drop out of the primary and immediately endorse the former president. Since then, he has been a fervent Trump surrogate.

The son of Indian immigrants, Ramaswamy earned a biology degree from Harvard University and a law degree from Yale University. He made a fortune buying undervalued pharmaceutical stocks that later skyrocketed before founding Roivant Sciences in 2014, a biotech startup now valued at almost $9 billion, to advance drugs that big drugmakers deprioritized.

Ramaswamy hasn’t been involved with the company since he left its board in early 2023 for his presidential campaign, although he remains a shareholder.

His work for the new administration might be relatively brief. He is interested in running for Ohio governor in 2026, when the post now held by Republican Mike DeWine opens because of term limits. A Trump endorsement could help Ramaswamy in the primary and even general election.

Trump said in his announcement of DOGE that it would complete its work “no later than July 4, 2026," a date that coincides with the nation’s 250th anniversary.

In his presidential bid, Ramaswamy campaigned with a strong disdain for identity politics and focused heavily on his opposition to business efforts to advance political, social and environmental causes, while also selling himself as an outsider and government skeptic.

Among the federal agencies he called for eliminating or major reorganization during his campaign were the Education Department, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Internal Revenue Service, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.

Ramaswamy mostly self-funded his campaign, donating close to $26 million, federal records show. Forbes estimates his net worth at $1 billion, compared with about $320 billion for Musk.

Write to John McCormick at mccormick.john@wsj.com