Welcome to POLITICO’s West Wing Playbook, your guide to the preparations, personnel decisions and policy deliberations of Donald Trump’s transition. POLITICO Pro subscribers receive a version of this newsletter first. Send tips | Subscribe here | Email Eli | Email Lauren | Email Lisa | Email Megan ELON MUSK is in on the joke. Really. But leaning into a 2013 meme as part of an effort to brand his new endeavor may obscure something far more serious, ambitions and influence that likely extend far beyond streamlining government. Ever since DONALD TRUMP tasked him with co-leading a new Department of Governmental Efficiency — for short, or perhaps branding purposes, it’s … DOGE — Musk has fully leaned into the decade-old Internet joke by reposting on X multiple AI-generated images, including a cartooned and sunglassed Musk and Trump against a backdrop of the White House and an American flag, with the letters “D.O.G.E.” splayed across the top, and a Shiba Inu tucked into the corner. “Making America Fun Again!” he posted separately, promising “the merch will be ������”. The meme-fied public messaging, however, belie the seriousness and intensity with which the world’s richest man has wormed his way into Trump’s life since endorsing him in July — and, quite possibly, far larger aims. There are few details publicly available about what DOGE might look like, how it would be funded and what its goals might be, though Musk said in a recent interview with TUCKER CARLSON that the number of federal agencies should be cut from 438 (Musk said 428 in the interview) to 99. There are also outstanding questions about where the agency would be housed and whether its leaders — Musk’s co-leader is VIVEK RAMASWAMY, who lost to Trump in the GOP primary — would be paid, both of which raise questions about how much public accountability they would be required to comply with. On Thursday, Musk put out a call via a new “DOGE” account on X for “super high-IQ small government revolutionaries willing to work 80+ hours per week on unglamorous cost-cutting,” claiming that he and Ramaswamy would be reviewing resumes themselves. It sounded a lot like his ultimatum to Twitter employees two years ago after purchasing the platform, demanding they commit to “hardcore” Twitter and “working long hours at high intensity.” Already the most powerful non-state actor in the world and single biggest beneficiary of U.S. government contracts, Musk is now poised to have even more influence on the next president of the United States and the inner workings of government agencies than he already does. It’s a fact even Trump himself appears aware of, joking during a closed House Republican Conference meeting on Wednesday that he can’t seem to get rid of Musk. The Tesla founder accompanied him on his first trip to Washington as president-elect after spending election night and the days that followed ensconced at Mar-a-Lago, as documented in family photos and by club members. Two of those members said they’ve seen Musk on the golf course with Trump, in the gift shop and dining with transition co-chairman HOWARD LUTNICK then later with the president-elect and his wife, MELANIA TRUMP. When Trump spoke with Ukrainian President VOLODYMYR ZELENSKYY , Musk joined the call. And as Trump has gotten down to business, starting to fill out his Cabinet and other administration posts and gaming out Wednesday’s vote by Senate Republicans to select a new majority leader, Musk has often been in the room, the people said. IAN BREMMER, the president of the Eurasia Group, called the rumored $200 million Musk spent, mostly through his America PAC, in support of Trump’s campaign “the single best political bet that I've seen made by anyone in my entire career.” BRIAN HUGHES, a spokesperson for the Trump transition, in a statement called Musk a "genius" and "innovator" who "has literally made history by building creative, modern, and efficient systems." "Elon Musk has dedicated himself to America’s future by offering to serve with President Trump to ensure our government works more efficiently and uses America’s taxpayer dollars effectively," Hughes said, adding that DOGE will be "ultimately staffed and dedicated to this mission." According to Bremmer, who meets frequently with heads of state and senior government officials around the world on behalf of clients paying for assessments of geopolitics, Musk has told Chinese officials he could be a helpful interlocutor in a future Trump administration who could sway the president-elect’s tech policy. As the owner of Tesla, Musk would benefit from a loosening of the export controls on semiconductors and other restrictions that have most frustrated Beijing. “Elon's greatest interest is going to be to drive tech policy in a way that will be aligned with his business interests around the world, in the Gulf, in China, everywhere, in space,” Bremmer said. Even before Trump’s election victory, Musk’s outsized influence was a growing concern inside JOE BIDEN ’s White House. It wasn’t so much that Musk was backing Trump’s campaign, or even that his PAC’s “lottery” incentivizing people to register to vote with $1 million checks was almost certainly illegal. The bigger problem was that he was talking to U.S. adversaries like Russian President VLADIMIR PUTIN without coordinating with the government, even while maintaining security clearances from his involvement in Space X and Starlink. But if the Biden administration was planning on taking action to rein him in or restrict his security clearance after the election had KAMALA HARRIS won, there’s no point now given his close relationship with Trump. There is always the risk that the currently warm Musk-Trump relationship hits some turbulence. Already, the tech journalist KARA SWISHER has suggested in an interview on CNN that Musk was turning into a sort of KATO KAELIN, a houseguest who never leaves. The former reality TV star-turned-president has at times grown tired of aides and allies whose profiles have risen and diverted attention away from him. For now, the government efficiency post keeps Musk close to the White House and an at-times-malleable president who has often been swayed by whatever aides are closest. “There is only room in Trump world for one main character,” said a former Trump administration official who was granted anonymity to speak candidly about their former boss. “What’s weird about this is that the other main character opposite the president is the richest man in the world who is also used to doing whatever he wants. This could be a mutually beneficial relationship for both — but it also feels fairly combustible.” Meridith McGraw contributed to this report. MESSAGE US — Are you XAVIER BECERRA? 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