Featured Image Credit: Jeff Bottari/Contributor / NurPhoto/Contributor / Getty
The Department of Government Efficiency isn't looking too efficient right now, as prospective applicants to the recently announced roles have realized they might need to pay a fee just to apply.
Following Donald Trump's election victory in early November it was announced that Tesla and SpaceX owner Elon Musk, alongside Vivek Ramaswamy, would be set to head up a new private advisory board to the US Government named the 'Department of Government Efficiency' - or 'DOGE' for short.
This new position, which Musk has claimed will cut $2 billion from the budget and help pull America out of 'bankruptcy' and 'unsustainable' debt growth has been the at the center of all news following the tech mogul.
The announcement of this new position has allowed certain cryptocurrencies to surge over 106%, including one former 'meme coin' which is innately tied to the Musk and Ramasawmy-headed department.
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In a statement on Musk-owned X (formerly Twitter), the DOGE announced that they're looking for "super high-IQ small-government revolutionaries willing to work 80+ hours per week on unglamorous cost-cutting."
This 'sounds' like a job, but there's also an elephant in the room when it comes to pay for the role too.
On the contrary, it appears that to even submit your application for consideration - at which Musk and Ramaswamy will review only "the top 1% of applicants" - you need to fork up some money yourself.
This is due to the fact that applications are exclusively submitted by direct messaging the DOGE account on X, which, at the time of the announcement, you could only do with an X Premium subscription, which range from $8 to $16 per month.
It appears as if the accounts DMs have since been opened up to all users, circumventing the need for a paid account, but it does certainly put things into perspective that a man who gained $26bn post-election required you to pay him to apply for a job.
Many have raised concerns over the position of DOGE in relation to the businesses of it's entrepreneurial leads - as businesses owned by both have benefitted greatly from government subsidies and have also been restricted by previous government regulation.
For example, Musk has proposed ideas for high-speed commercial flights that take advantage of his SpaceX rockets, which would have likely been hamstrung by previous regulation.
While it's safe to assume that many prospective applicants would be fans of Musk, and therefore are likely to already own an X Premium subscription, it does certainly point to the inefficiency of the department's processes at the very beginning - and the length's they'll perhaps go to raise funds.
UniladTech has reached out to X and the Center for Presidential Transition for comment but has not yet had a response
