'Laughable': Trump 'efficiency' effort shredded by nervous experts

President-elect Donald Trump's plans to make the federal government more efficient with help from his billionaire buddies is spurring chuckles from experts who find the plan absurd — and dangerous.

Trump this week claimed Elon Musk will lead a so-called "Department of Government Efficiency" to cut down on unnecessary government spending by decimating federal agencies — but experts predict he'll orchestrate a clown show tinged with corruption, E&E News by Politico reported Wednesday.

“[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," Lisa Gilbert, of the watchdog group Public Citizen, reportedly said.

“Placing Elon Musk, the ultimate corporate tycoon, in authority over government efficiency is laughable.”

Musk and entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy have both claimed they will implement a “massive downsizing” of government agencies about which the X CEO has admitted he knows very little — not even knowing how many there are.

"Do we really need whatever it is, 428, federal agencies?” Musk said in a recent interview. “I think we should be able to get away with 99 agencies."

Trump himself has used catastrophic language to describe DOGE — an acronymic hat-tip to the bitcoin brand championed by Musk — to the public, E&E News reported.

“It will become, potentially, ‘The Manhattan Project’ of our time,” Trump said, referencing America's effort to develop an atomic bomb during World War II.

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Musk says Trump's Manhattan Project redux will be crowdsourced on social media to ensure transparency.

“Anytime the public thinks we are cutting something important or not cutting something wasteful," Musk said, "just let us know!"

Sally Katzen, who led the White House regulatory affairs office during the Clinton administration, hinted to E&E News she wasn't sold on the idea that Musk and Ramaswamy, two men “without any experience in government," would be able to deliver on their promises.

"Will their recommendations go through [the Office of Management and Budget] and therefore have some meaning?" she asked. Or will it become “a PR campaign?”

Cary Coglianese, founding director of the Penn Program on Regulation at the University of Pennsylvania, noted advisory committees can't make any decisions.

But Musk and Ramaswamy “could, in practice, have considerable sway if a president chooses to be persuaded by the advice being given," he said.