In that role, Musk has vowed to help cut an unprecedented $2 trillion from the federal budget. He hasn’t specified the agencies he’d go after, but regularly rails against the regulators with oversight of his own companies. In a long diatribe on the Joe Rogan podcast this week, he described a SpaceX rocket that sat on a launchpad for two months waiting for regulatory approval.

“We could build the rocket faster than they could approve the paperwork,” he said. “It’s like Gulliver being tied down by a million little strings. It’s not like any one string is the problem but you’ve got a million of them.”

A broad remit would give the Tesla, SpaceX and X boss leverage to reshape federal agencies that both regulate — and have the power to investigate — his many companies. He has already said he would use whatever power he gets to push for a federal approval process of fully autonomous vehicles. Current rules prevent manufacturers from putting more than a couple thousand cars on the road per year without steering wheels or other controls.