By Helen Coster and Gram Slattery
NEW YORK (Reuters) -Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump said on Thursday he would establish a government efficiency commission headed by billionaire supporter Elon Musk if he wins the Nov. 5 election, during a wide-ranging speech in which he laid out his economic vision for the country.
The former president has been discussing the idea of a government efficiency commission with aides for weeks, people with knowledge of those conversations have told Reuters. His speech to the New York Economic Club on Thursday, however, was the first time he had publicly endorsed the idea.
It was also the first time Trump said that Musk has agreed to head the body. He did not detail precisely how such a commission would operate, besides saying it would develop a plan to eliminate “fraud and improper payments” within six months of being formed.
“I will create a government efficiency commission tasked with conducting a complete financial and performance audit of the entire federal government and making recommendations for drastic reforms,” Trump said.
Musk said on an Aug. 19 podcast that he had held conversations with the former president about the matter and that he would be interested in serving on the body.
“I look forward to serving America if the opportunity arises,” Musk wrote on X on Thursday.
“No pay, no title, no recognition is needed.”
Trump’s proposal for the commission drew an immediate rebuke from Everett Kelley, president of the American Federation of Government Employees, a union which represents about 750,000 federal workers. He accused Trump and Musk of wanting to gut the non-partisan civil service and replace fired workers with allies.
“There’s nothing efficient about that,” Kelley wrote in a statement to Reuters.
The U.S. government already has the nonpartisan Government Accountability Office (GAO) a federal watchdog agency tasked with investigating federal spending and performance.
During his speech, Trump reiterated his plan to cut the U.S. corporate tax rate to 15% from 21%, but only for companies that manufacture domestically. He also said he would open up tracts of federal land to homebuilding in a bid to drive down housing costs. These new housing zones would be “low tax” and “low regulation,” Trump said, without elaborating.
“We’re going to open up our country to building homes inexpensively, so young people and other people can buy homes,” he said.
While Trump had already said he wanted to cut the tax rate to 15%, he had not previously tied that lower rate to keeping manufacturing inside the country.
Trump also called for creating a sovereign wealth fund, in part to fund major infrastructure projects, including highways, airports and manufacturing hubs.
During his speech, Trump pointed to a number of business leaders in the audience, including JP Morgan CEO Jamie Dimon, Blackstone Group CEO Stephen Schwarzman and his own former treasury secretary, Steve Mnuchin.
Attendees at Thursday’s event also included Cantor Fitzgerald chief executive Howard Lutnick, who serves as co-chair of Trump’s transition team.
On the campaign trail, Trump has frequently blamed Democratic nominee Kamala Harris, the vice president, for the rise in prices of everyday goods during President Joe Biden’s term in office.
While headline inflation has slowed in the past two years, many U.S. consumers are still unhappy with the higher prices they have to pay for food, gas and other goods, according to public opinion polls.
Trump is seen as a more competent steward of the economy by most voters. But his advantage over Harris on the issue is eroding, surveys show.
(Reporting by Helen Coster in New York and Gram Slattery in Washington; Additional reporting by Steve Holland and Tim Reid in Washington; Editing by Ross Colvin and Jonathan Oatis)
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