Kushner to lead White House innovation office: report

President Trump is reportedly creating a new White House innovation office that will be led by his son-in-law and senior adviser, Jared Kushner.

The White House Office of American Innovation will be announced Monday, The Washington Post reported, and will report directly to the president. The idea is to help meet some of the goals Trump pledged to accomplish during his campaign, such as working to improve veteran care and fight opioid addiction.

{mosads}The new office, which is described in the Post report as a “SWAT team” to fix the federal bureaucracy, is working with tech giants such as Apple CEO Tim Cook, Microsoft founder Bill Gates, Tesla founder and CEO Elon Musk and Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff. It is expected to pull ideas from the business world and may consider privatizing some government functions. 

The team will include former business executives, according to the report.

“We should have excellence in government,” Kushner told the Post. “The government should be run like a great American company. Our hope is that we can achieve successes and efficiencies for our customers, who are the citizens.”

Ivanka Trump, Kushner’s wife, will also play a role with the new innovation office, helping with workforce development, according to the report. But though the first daughter has joined the administration, she will not have an official title within the office.

Kushner, who works as a senior adviser to Trump on foreign relations, has come under scrutiny by Democrats who have raised conflict-of-interest concerns over Kushner’s real estate project with a Chinese firm.