Trump Son-in-Law to Lead New American Innovation Office

As reported by CNN, Ivanka Trump’s husband Jared Kushner will be heading a new White House office designed to streamline the federal government by adopting solutions from the private sector. 

“This office is basically going to be an internal think tank at the White House where they are going to be dealing with CEOs like Tim Cook at Apple, Elon Musk at Tesla to come up with ideas from the private sector for how to fix the federal bureaucracy,” reports CNN. 

Kushner’s new office will seek to build on Trump’s campaign promise to apply business principles to the federal government, which he has often criticized as overly burdensome. 

“All Americans, regardless of their political views, can recognize that government stagnation has hindered our ability to properly function, often creating widespread congestion and leading to cost overruns and delays,” said President Trump. “I promised the American people I would produce results, and apply my ‘ahead of schedule, under budget’ mentality to the government.”

Kushner, who is already a senior White House adviser, will be joined in the new office by former Goldman Sachs execs Gary Cohn and Dina Habib Powell.

Kushner is optimistic that his new office will be able to help the White House run more smoothly. “The government should be run like a great American company,” he said. “Our hope is that we can achieve successes and efficiencies for our customers, who are the citizens.” 

“Jared is reaching out and listening to leaders from across the business community – not just on day-to-day issues, but on long-term challenges like how to train a modern workforce and how to apply the latest innovations to government operations,” said IBM CEO Gini Rometty. 

“There is a need to figure out what policies are adding friction to the system without accompanying it with significant benefits,” said Blackstone CEO Stephen Schwarzman. “It’s easy for the private sector to at least see where the friction is, and to do that very quickly and succinctly.” 

The innovation group has already hosted meetings with private sector stars including Bill Gates (Microsoft), Tim Cook (Apple) and Elon Musk (Tesla, SpaceX). 

Areas they seek to address include improving workforce development, restructuring Veterans’ Affairs, and targeting America’s widespread opioid addiction.

New Jersey Governor Chris Christie has been tapped to chair a drug commission that will be announced later this week. 

Editor’s note: To me as a technologist and (I believe) innovator, this is the most exciting action Trump has taken so far. This gives Trump direct access to some of the most brilliant minds in the world, all focused on finding competent and practical ways to make America better. This could not get any closer to the Oval Office.