Meeting behind closed doors at the Capitol, Musk told the mostly Republican lawmakers they would be keeping a "naughty and nice" list of those who join in the budget-slashing proposals and those who did not, according to lawmakers who attended.
"We're going to see a lot of change around here in Washington," said House Speaker Mike Johnson on Thursday as Musk, with his young son on his shoulders, breezed by and into the private meeting.
Trump tapped the two business titans to head his Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, a non-governmental task force assigned to find ways to fire federal workers, cut programs and slash federal regulations - all part of what he calls his "Save America" agenda for a second term in the White House.
Washington has seen this before, with ambitious efforts to reduce the size and scope of the federal government that historically have run into resistance when the public is confronted with cuts to trusted programs that millions of Americans depend on for jobs, health care, military security and everyday needs.
"We're going to see a lot of change around here in Washington," said Speaker Mike Johnson (left). (AP PHOTO)
But this time Trump is staffing his administration with battle-tested architects of sweeping proposals, some outlined in Project 2025, to severely reduce and reshape the government.
Musk and Ramaswamy have said they plan to work alongside the White House's Office of Management and Budget, headed by Trump's nominee Russ Vought, a mastermind of past cuts.
"DOGE has a historic opportunity for structural reductions in the federal government," Musk and Ramaswamy wrote in an op-ed in The Wall Street Journal.
"We are prepared for the onslaught."
Trump said he would also name venture capitalist and former PayPal executive David Sacks to be the "White House AI and crypto czar" and lead the Presidential Council of Advisors for Science and Technology.
Trump said in a social media post that Sacks would help "steer us away from Big Tech bias and censorship".
Trump's transition team did not say whether Sacks would be a government employee or a temporary government worker who would not be bound by the same ethics and disclosure rules.
Sacks visited Mar-a-Lago earlier on Thursday, according to an investor who held an event at Trump's Florida club.
The nation's $US6 trillion federal budget routinely runs a deficit, which this year ran $US1.8 trillion, a historic high, according to the Congressional Budget Office.
It has not been balanced since the Clinton administration more than two decades ago.
Republicans generally blame what they see as exorbitant spending for the deficit, while Democrats point to tax cuts enacted under Republican presidents Trump and George W Bush as the major driver.
