Social media raises profile of mission to cut bureaucracy

The commission President-elect Donald Trump has tasked with eliminating government inefficiency has something that previous waste-cutting committees have lacked: the social media bullhorn.

Mr. Trump relies on social media to circumvent traditional news media and wants his new Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, to follow suit. He tapped Elon Musk, who purchased Twitter in 2022 and renamed it X, to co-chair the group with Vivek Ramaswamy.

Grover Norquist, president of Americans for Tax Reform, said President Reagan’s like-minded Grace Commission had difficulty promoting its effort to regulate government spending and “drain the swamp” because it had to rely on traditional media.

“What the Grace Commission didn’t have was Twitter,” Mr. Norquist said. “The Grace Commission could give ideas to CBS, and then CBS would maybe give you some boring top-line numbers.

“Many of the ideas [the Grace Commission] had were enacted,” he said. “There were real savings that took place as a result, but it didn’t have the support of the press.”

Mr. Musk, Mr. Ramaswamy and their allies have been promoting their visions for DOGE and citing reports of government waste. They are looking to frame the debate and win the early public relations battle as they prepare for the political fights on the horizon.

In recent posts, Mr. Musk has said: “America is headed for de facto bankruptcy very fast,” “The scale of spending on illegal immigration boggles the mind!” and “Less government means more power to the people.”

The constant online chatter has helped keep DOGE in the headlines and allowed the world to see that it has found unlikely allies on social media.

“Elon Musk is right. The Pentagon, with a budget of $886 billion, just failed its 7th audit in a row. It’s lost track of billions,” Sen. Bernard Sanders, Vermont independent, recently wrote on X. “Last year, only 13 senators voted against the Military Industrial Complex and a defense budget full of waste and fraud. That must change.”

Mr. Musk responded to the post with two American flag emojis.

Thomas A. Schatz, president of Citizens Against Government Waste, a group born out of the Grace Commission, urged caution. He said crafting and passing legislation based on DOGE recommendations “is more complex than simply making a statement on social media or just saying this needs to be done.”

Still, Mr. Schatz said X and other social media platforms are “great” tools to promote the work of DOGE and the grassroots taxpayer advocacy groups that have been fighting for decades in the political trenches.

“The capability of social media and email, combined with support from groups that have worked on these issues and are respected on Capitol Hill, is a combination unlike anything that’s previously occurred,” Mr. Schatz said.

While the Grace Commission was operating in the 1980s, small-government advocates relied on direct mail, phone calls and grassroots organizations lobbying Congress to advance the debate.

“You want to see a picture of us stuffing envelopes?” Mr. Schatz said.

Social media has benefited groups across the political spectrum, but DOGE has something that other political movements do not, he said.

“The difference, of course, is that it’s Elon Musk’s company and Elon Musk’s tweets,” he said. “It’s not just an organization or a few organizations tweeting something or posting on Facebook, motivating their members. This is a much larger audience than we’ve had to get these recommendations implemented.”