Ramaswamy suggests he would run government like Musk does X

Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy suggested Friday if elected in 2024, he would run the government like tech billionaire Elon Musk runs the social media platform X, formerly known as Twitter.

“What [Musk] did at Twitter is a good example of what I want to do to the administrative state,” Ramaswamy said in an interview with Fox News. “Take out the 75 percent of the dead weight cost, improve the actual experience of what it’s supposed to do.” 

His remarks come after Musk called Ramaswamy a “very promising candidate,” in an interview on Thursday on Tucker Carlson’s online show.

Musk previously backed Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’s presidential candidacy and even helped him announce his presidential candidacy on Twitter Spaces in May. His comments on Ramaswamy, however, signaled he may not be all-in on the Florida governor as once thought.

Pointing to Musk’s release of what was dubbed “The Twitter Files,” Ramaswamy said he would similarly release state action files.

After buying the social media platform in a $44 billion deal last fall, the first installment of Musk's "Twitter Files" were published by Matt Taibbi, an independent journalist. The posts showed purported screenshots from internal communications from top executives on how to handle the New York Post’s publication of a story containing potentially damaging allegations about Hunter Biden, the son of then-presidential candidate Joe Biden.

Ramaswamy suggested he was impressed "anytime a bureaucrat has pressured a private company for the world to see."

"[Musk] put an X through Twitter, I’ll put a big X through the administrative state," he said. "So, that’s where I’m at on common tactics with Elon.”

Since purchasing the X platform, Musk has implemented a series of controversial changes including mass layoffs, the ousting of some top executives, pay walls on some features without a subscription and pulling back on some of the platform’s content moderation programs.