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Trump Expected to Tap US Senator Marco Rubio for Secretary of State

(FILES) US Senator Marco Rubio, Republican of Florida, speaks during the second day of the 2024 Republican National Convention at the Fiserv Forum in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, July 16, 2024. (Photo by ANDREW CABALLERO-REYNOLDS / AFP)
(FILES) US Senator Marco Rubio, Republican of Florida, speaks during the second day of the 2024 Republican National Convention at the Fiserv Forum in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, July 16, 2024. (Photo by ANDREW CABALLERO-REYNOLDS / AFP)
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Trump Expected to Tap US Senator Marco Rubio for Secretary of State

(FILES) US Senator Marco Rubio, Republican of Florida, speaks during the second day of the 2024 Republican National Convention at the Fiserv Forum in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, July 16, 2024. (Photo by ANDREW CABALLERO-REYNOLDS / AFP)
(FILES) US Senator Marco Rubio, Republican of Florida, speaks during the second day of the 2024 Republican National Convention at the Fiserv Forum in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, July 16, 2024. (Photo by ANDREW CABALLERO-REYNOLDS / AFP)

Donald Trump is expected to tap US Senator Marco Rubio to be his secretary of state, sources said on Monday, putting the Florida-born politician on track to be the first Latino to serve as America's top diplomat once the Republican president-elect takes office in January.
Rubio was arguably the most hawkish option on Trump's shortlist for secretary of state, and he has in past years advocated for a muscular foreign policy with respect to America's geopolitical foes, including China, Iran and Cuba, Reuters reported.
Over the last several years he has softened some of his stances to align more closely with Trump's views. The president-elect accuses past US presidents of leading America into costly and futile wars and has pushed for a more restrained foreign policy.
While the famously mercurial Trump could always change his mind at the last minute, he appeared to have settled on his pick as of Monday, according to the sources, who requested anonymity to discuss private conversations.
Representatives for Trump and Rubio did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
The new administration will confront a world more volatile and dangerous than it was when Trump took office in 2017, with wars raging in Ukraine and the Middle East and China aligning itself more closely with US foes Russia and Iran.
The Ukraine crisis will be high on Rubio's agenda.
Rubio, 53, has said in recent interviews that Ukraine needs to seek a negotiated settlement with Russia rather than focus on regaining all territory that Russia has taken in the last decade. He was also one of 15 Republican senators to vote against a $95 billion military aid package for Ukraine, passed in April.

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Trump Names Elon Musk to Role Leading Government Efficiency Drive

Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk wears a black "Make America Great Again" ball cap while attending a campaign rally with Republican presidential nominee, former President Donald Trump at the Butler Farm Show fairgrounds on October 05, 2024 in Butler, Pennsylvania. (AFP)
Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk wears a black "Make America Great Again" ball cap while attending a campaign rally with Republican presidential nominee, former President Donald Trump at the Butler Farm Show fairgrounds on October 05, 2024 in Butler, Pennsylvania. (AFP)
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Trump Names Elon Musk to Role Leading Government Efficiency Drive

Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk wears a black "Make America Great Again" ball cap while attending a campaign rally with Republican presidential nominee, former President Donald Trump at the Butler Farm Show fairgrounds on October 05, 2024 in Butler, Pennsylvania. (AFP)
Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk wears a black "Make America Great Again" ball cap while attending a campaign rally with Republican presidential nominee, former President Donald Trump at the Butler Farm Show fairgrounds on October 05, 2024 in Butler, Pennsylvania. (AFP)

US President-elect Donald Trump on Tuesday named Elon Musk to a role aimed at creating a more efficient government, handing even more influence to the world's richest man who donated millions of dollars to helping Trump get elected.

Musk and former Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy will co-lead a newly created Department of Government Efficiency, an entity Trump indicated will operate outside the confines of government.

Trump said in a statement that Musk and Ramaswamy "will pave the way for my Administration to dismantle Government Bureaucracy, slash excess regulations, cut wasteful expenditures, and restructure Federal Agencies."

Trump said the new department will realize long-held Republican dreams and "provide advice and guidance from outside of government," signaling the Musk and Ramaswamy roles would be informal, without requiring Senate approval and allowing Musk to remain the head of electric car company Tesla, social media platform X and rocket company SpaceX.

The new department would work with the White House and Office of Management & Budget to "drive large scale structural reform, and create an entrepreneurial approach" to government never seen before, Trump said.

The work would conclude by July 4, 2026 - the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence.

Musk, ranked by Forbes as the richest person in the world, already stood to benefit from Trump's victory, with the billionaire entrepreneur expected to wield extraordinary influence to help his companies and secure favorable government treatment.

With many links to Washington, Musk gave millions of dollars to support Trump's presidential campaign and made public appearances with him.

Adding a government portfolio to Musk's plate could benefit the market value of his companies and favored businesses such as artificial intelligence and cryptocurrency.

"It's clear that Musk will have a massive role in the Trump White House with his increasing reach clearly across many federal agencies," equities analyst Daniel Ives of Wedbush Securities said in a research note.

"We believe the major benefits for Musk and Tesla far outweigh any negatives as this continues to be a 'poker move for the ages' by Musk betting on Trump," Ives said.

The move was criticized by Public Citizen, a progressive consumer tights NGO that challenged several of Trump’s first-term policies.

"Musk not only knows nothing about government efficiency and regulation, his own businesses have regularly run afoul of the very rules he will be in position to attack in his new ‘czar’ position," Lisa Gilbert, co-president of Public Citizen, said in a statement. "This is the ultimate corporate corruption."

MAXIMUM TRANSPARENCY PROMISED

Trump likened the efficiency effort to the Manhattan Project, the US undertaking to build the atomic bomb that helped end World War Two, while Musk promised transparency.

"All actions of the Department of Government Efficiency will be posted online for maximum transparency," Musk said on X, inviting the public to provide tips.

"We will also have a leaderboard for most insanely dumb spending of your tax dollars. This will be both extremely tragic and extremely entertaining," Musk said.

Musk said at a Trump rally at Madison Square Garden in October that the federal budget could be reduced by "at least" $2 trillion. Discretionary spending, including defense spending, is estimated to total $1.9 trillion out of $6.75 trillion in total federal outlays for fiscal 2024, according to the Congressional Budget Office.

"Your money is being wasted and the Department of Government Efficiency is going to fix that. We're going to get the government off you back and out of your pocketbook," Musk said at the rally.

The acronym of the new department - DOGE - also references the name of the cryptocurrency dogecoin that Musk promotes. In August Musk and Tesla won the dismissal of a federal lawsuit accusing them of defrauding investors by hyping dogecoin and conducting insider trading, causing billions of dollars of losses.

Dogecoin has more than doubled since Election Day, tracking a surge in cryptocurrency markets on expectations of a softer regulatory ride under a Trump administration.

Shares in Tesla fell on Wall Street ahead of the announcement but are up about 30% since the election.

Ramaswamy is the founder of a pharmaceutical company who ran for the Republican presidential nomination against Trump and then threw his support behind the former president after dropping out.

Ramaswamy said the appointment means he is withdrawing from consideration for the pending US Senate appointment in Ohio, where Governor Mike DeWine will appoint a replacement for JD Vance, who will become Trump's vice president when they are inaugurated on Jan. 20.