Elon Musk, the multimillionaire charged with making the US government more efficient starting in January, has set its sights on the Federal Reserve.
The central bank charged with protecting the world’s largest economy is “absurdly overstaffed,” he wrote. Musk on social media platform X. The remarks were part of a thread that started when someone posted about the Fed’s latest policy decision.
They come after the president-elect of the United States, Donald Trump, He also put the Fed in the spotlight, arguing that it should have a say in monetary policy and setting interest rates.
Musk has become one of Trump’s closest advisers as he prepares to return to the White House, and is set to lead a new agency – called the Department of Government Efficiency – alongside businessman Vivek Ramaswamy. The Doge, as he is known, aims to achieve a more agile and efficient government, including spending cuts worth US$2 trillion.
The Federal Reserve Board in Washington and the 12 US regional reserve banks employed about 24,000 people last year, a figure significantly lower than that of comparable institutions.
In the Eurosystem, which comprises the European Central Bank and the region’s 20 national peers, the central banks of Germany, France and Italy together had more people on their payrolls.
The Fed and its chairman, Jerome Powell, have been frequent targets of Trump, who appointed him during his first term. Recently, he derided Powell’s role as “the best job in government,” saying, “You show up at the office once a month and say, ‘Let’s see, flip a coin.'”
Although Powell has not responded directly, ECB President Christine Lagarde refuted Trump’s complaint, inviting him to come observe the work of his team in Frankfurt.
“I have thousands of hard-working people – economists, lawyers, computer scientists – and I can assure you that they work super hard every day, not just once a month,” he told Bloomberg TV. “We defend the euro, and we fight for the euro, just as the Fed defends the dollar, I’m sure – I don’t want to speak for Jay Powell, but I’m sure that’s how he sees his job.”
