“An unpaid group of billionaires, tech executives and some disciples of Peter Thiel, a powerful Republican donor, are preparing to take up unofficial positions in the U.S. government in the name of cost-cutting,” the New York Times reports. “As President-elect Donald Trump’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency girds for battle against ‘wasteful’ spending, it is preparing to dispatch individuals with ties to its co-leaders, Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy, to agencies across the federal government.” “After Inauguration Day, the group of Silicon Valley-inflected, wide-eyed recruits will be deployed to Washington’s alphabet soup of agencies.