Billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk has suggested that slashing US government regulations would enable huge cuts in the federal workforce.

US President-elect Donald Trump has named Musk and fellow entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy to head the new organization to be called the "Department of Government Efficiency."

On Wednesday, the two men sent an opinion piece to The Wall Street Journal.

They said they have been asked by Trump to "cut the federal government down to size," and that they are "doing things differently" by serving as outside volunteers, not federal officials or employees.

Musk and Ramaswamy said they will pursue three major kinds of reform -- regulatory rescissions, administrative reductions and cost savings.

They added, "A drastic reduction in federal regulations provides sound industrial logic for mass head-count reductions across the federal bureaucracy."

The federal spending review will target annual expenditures of 500 billion dollars or more that are not authorized by Congress or being used in ways that Congress never intended, such as subsidizing international organizations and funding US public broadcast services.

The two men say they hope to achieve their goals by the 250th anniversary of the United States' founding on July 4, 2026.