Is Vivek Ramaswamy returning to helm Doge after Elon Musk's exit?

Elon Musk is out, but who’s in?

A day after the tech billionaire, the mind behind Tesla, SpaceX, called time on his work at the Department of Government Efficiency (Doge), the big question that everyone is asking but no one has an answer to — is who will be the next chief of the agency that has cut millions of jobs and caused all-round chaos and become central to many lawsuits.

While US President Donald Trump and Elon Musk haven’t dropped any hints on the future leadership at Doge, many have already begun speculating with one name being considered the frontrunner. That’s none other than Vivek Ramaswamy, the former presidential candidate who had been initially elected to run Doge alongside Musk.

Musk’s exit from Doge

After being appointed by Trump to run the newly-formed Department of Government Efficiency (Doge) in November last year, Elon Musk on Wednesday (May 29) announced that his “scheduled time as a special a special government employee” had come to an end.

In his message, he thanked US President Donald Trump for giving him the “opportunity to reduce wasteful spending”. And in his time as Doge leader, the world’s richest man took a chainsaw to government programmes, cutting thousands of jobs and earning him the scorn of people not just in America but also across Europe — which could be seen in the form of protests against him, and his cars and showrooms being vandalised.

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Interestingly, Musk hasn’t hinted or indicated as to who could take over from him at Doge. In fact, when asked about it in the past, he said: “Doge is a way of life, like Buddhism. Is Buddha needed for Buddhism? Was it (Buddhism) not stronger after he (Buddha) passed away?”

The Tesla CEO said that just like Buddhism continued without Buddha, DOGE would continue its work without him.

But not everyone agrees with this. A former Doge staffer, Sahil Lavingia, who spent almost two months working for the group, said he expects the cost-cutting agency to quickly “fizzle out”.

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“It’ll just die a whimper,” Lavingia, who was fired from Doge earlier this month, told Reuters. “So much of the appeal and allure was Elon.” He said he expected Doge staffers to “just stop showing up to work. It’s like kids joining a start-up that will go out of business in four months.”

Vivek Ramaswamy, lead contender for Doge leadership

But despite Lavingia’s concerns about Doge’s future, many are speculating and discussing the next leader of Doge, with quite a few thinking it could be Vivek Ramaswamy.

He’s considered the hot favourite owing to the fact that he had been initially selected by Trump to co-run the agency before stepping down from the role to run for Ohio governor in February. At that time, rumours were swirling that it was Musk who had got the Indian-origin entrepreneur-turned-politician fired from the job. When asked about it directly, Ramaswamy told Fox News, “No. We had a mutual discussion. And I think that I wish him well.”

“There’s no better person to lead a technology-driven approach than Elon Musk,” Ramaswamy said. “But what I would say is we had different and complementary approaches. I focused more on a constitutional law legislative-based approach to focus more on a technology approach, which is the future approach.”

His foundational role in shaping the department may be the reason he’s now considered the frontrunner for the position at Doge.

Others in the running

While Vivek Ramaswamy is a frontrunner in the race to lead Doge, there are others too. Some believe that Tom Krause, an ally of Elon Musk, who currently serves as the Fiscal Assistant Secretary of the Treasury, could be taking over from the billionaire.

Krause, the CEO of Silicon Valley-based Cloud Software Group, has overseen layoffs at his company in each of the last three years while instituting a return-to-office mandate, rigid performance ratings, and a request that weekly updates be sent from workers directly to Krause — echoing the sort of reforms that Musk undertook at Doge.

Besides Krause, there’s also speculation that **Amy Gleason**, who is the acting administrator of Doge, could be officially named as the head of the agency. A former emergency room nurse-turned-health care technologist, Gleason was a relatively low-profile healthcare data cruncher with a passion for simplifying access to electronic medical records. However, in late February, she was named the acting administrator for Doge, elevating her position.

Gleason previously worked on projects related to health data at the US Digital Service, Doge’s predecessor, overlapping with Trump’s first term and the Biden administration. It is, in fact, during this time that Gleason collaborated with the White House on the federal response to the Covid-19 pandemic, worked on projects alongside the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS).

Many are also wondering aloud if Trump will hand over the reins of Doge to **Russell Vought**, Trump’s top budget official and leading figure behind the controversial Project 2025. Doge’s agenda matches with Vought’s — he is a staunch advocate of shrinking government. He is also known as the architect of Schedule F, aimed at replacing long-term federal employees with politically loyal staff.

There’s also buzz doing the rounds that 23-year-old **Luke Farritor**, a former SpaceX intern, could be heading Doge soon. It is reported that Farritor, a dropout from the University of Nebraska, is already working for Doge, reporting directly to long-time Musk adviser, Steve Davis.

Farritor came to the spotlight in 2024 after deciphering a 2,000-year-old papyrus scroll using AI. The scroll, damaged by Mount Vesuvius in 79 AD, earned him a $700,000 prize.

Another individual considered to be in the running for Doge leader is **Marko Elez**. The 25-year-old, who works at Doge, has been linked to racist posts in the past, including one post which read, ‘Normalise Indian hate’. A graduate from Rutgers University, he is said to have worked on search AI at X.

It’s unsure what happens next to Doge, but if the White House is to be believed then Doge will be led by “each and every member of the President’s Cabinet and the President himself.”

With inputs from agencies