Elon Musk and Donald Trump have seemed inseparable recently. After Musk declared his support for Trump’s presidential campaign in July, he donated more than $120 million to the pro-Trump Super PAC that he founded. He vigorously championed Trump on social media and elsewhere.

Trump repaid this backing in his own characteristic way. At a rally in Pennsylvania, he said of Musk, “He’s incredible. He’s a total genius.” A few days later, he declared, “We love him. He’s a smart cookie. Little different, too. He’s a little different, but he is one smart cookie.”

As the election drew nearer, Trump went further, announcing that Musk had suggested the creation of “a government efficiency commission tasked with conducting a complete financial and performance audit of the entire federal government… Elon has agreed to head the task force.”

Amid the flood of eye-catching and controversial nominations to executive positions, this has — up to a point — come to pass. Trump revealed that Musk and former Republican presidential hopeful Vivek Ramaswamy will run a new “Department of Government Efficiency,” intended to “slash excess regulations, cut wasteful expenditures, and restructure Federal Agencies.”

Despite its name, the new body will not be a department of the federal government but a body giving what Trump has referred to as “advice and guidance from........

© The Hill