Trump pledges to tap Elon Musk to head government efficiency commission | Donald Trump News

Former United States President Donald Trump has pledged to create a “government efficiency” commission headed by entrepreneur Elon Musk if he’s victorious in looking for re-election this November.

Trump made the pledge as he laid out his economic vision in a marketing campaign speech on the New York Financial Membership on Thursday.

Guarantees of financial prosperity have been a spine of Trump’s re-election bid in 2024, and he used Thursday’s speech to showcase his plans for a “nationwide financial renaissance”.

They embrace oft-repeated proposals to slash rules on power manufacturing, lower government spending and decrease company taxes for US corporations.

Much less acquainted had been his plans to embrace cryptocurrency and create the Musk-led commission, which he stated would get rid of “fraud and improper funds” inside six months of being fashioned.

“I’ll create a government efficiency commission tasked with conducting an entire monetary and efficiency audit of your complete federal government and making suggestions for drastic reforms,” Trump stated.

The US government already has the nonpartisan Government Accountability Workplace (GAO), a federal watchdog company tasked with investigating federal spending and efficiency. Trump didn’t provide particulars concerning the proposed new commission or how it might function.

Nonetheless, the pledge was swiftly condemned by the president of the American Federation of Government Staff, a union that represents about 750,000 federal employees.

In an announcement to the Reuters information company, Everett Kelley accused Trump and Musk of wanting to intestine the nonpartisan civil service sector and substitute fired employees with political allies.

“There’s nothing environment friendly about that,” Kelley stated.

For his half, Musk wrote on X that he would settle for the submit if Trump had been to win the November 5 election. He had beforehand stated throughout a podcast in August that he had mentioned the commission with Trump.

“I look ahead to serving America if the chance arises,” stated Musk, who bought the social media firm X, then often known as Twitter, in 2022. “No pay, no title, no recognition is required.”

He rapidly lifted Trump’s ban from the platform after buying it. He later endorsed Trump for president following an assassination attempt in opposition to the Republican chief in July.

Economic system and the poll field

The financial system has emerged as a key difficulty within the 2024 presidential election, by which Trump is going through off in opposition to Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic candidate. That comes as US shoppers proceed to wrestle with the price of residing, regardless of inflation slowing over the previous two years.

Final month, Harris unveiled a populist-leaning financial imaginative and prescient that will ban “worth gouging” on groceries. It additionally would enhance first-time homebuyers, provide a baby tax credit score and create tax incentives for inexpensive house builders.

On Wednesday, she additionally stated she would search a rise to the capital positive factors tax for rich Individuals — however that it might be decrease than the same enhance proposed by President Joe Biden.

Harris plans to implement a 28 % tax on funding earnings for these within the highest revenue bracket, lower than the 39.6 % proposed by Biden. The transfer has been seen as an effort to broaden Harris’s enchantment among the many ultra-wealthy.

Talking earlier than a number of distinguished CEOs on Thursday, Trump reiterated his plan to lower the US company tax charge to 15 % from 21 %, however just for corporations that manufacture domestically.

He additionally stated he would open up tracts of federal land to homebuilding in a bid to drive down housing prices. These new housing zones could be “low tax” and “low regulation”, Trump stated, with out elaborating.

Polls have indicated that voters typically view Trump as higher suited to dealing with the financial system than Harris, though the pair stay neck and neck in nationwide polls, in addition to surveys of battleground states.