Former President Donald Trump committed Thursday to adopting a government efficiency commission proposed last month by Elon Musk — saying America’s richest man is welcome to chair the panel.

“At the suggestion of Elon Musk, who is giving me his complete and total endorsement… I will create a government efficiency commission tasked with conducting a complete financial and performance audit of the entire federal government and making recommendations for drastic reforms,” Trump told the Economic Club of New York.

“Elon, because he’s not very busy, has agreed to head that task force,” the Republican presidential nominee, 78, added. “If he has the time, he’ll be a good one to do it, but he’s agreed to do it.”

Trump initially embraced the idea in an interview with the South Africa-born CEO of SpaceX and Tesla, which was streamed on Musk-owned X Aug. 12.

“I think we need a government efficiency commission to say like, ‘Hey, where are we spending money that’s sensible? Where is it not sensible?’ We need to live within our means,” Musk, 53, said in that conversation.

“I think it would be great to just have a government efficiency commission that takes a look at these things and just ensures that the taxpayer money, the taxpayers’ hard-earned money is spent in a good way. I’d be happy to help out on such a commission.”

Trump responded that “I’d love it” and added that “I need an Elon Musk — I need somebody that has a lot of strength and courage and smarts.”

The ex-president said that his own ideas for shrinking the government included “clos[ing] up [the] Department of Education [and] mov[ing] education back to the states.”

The national debt soared by almost $8 trillion to $27.75 trillion during Trump’s term of office — including final-year emergency spending during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Under Biden, the national debt has jumped more than $7.5 trillion to $35.3 trillion.

Trump told the country’s business elite that a victory by his Democratic rival would “turn the United States into Venezuela on steroids” — one day after Harris outlined her own vision for higher taxes on investment income.

The Republican said that he would try to decrease the corporate tax rate from 21% to 15% for domestic manufacturers if he retakes the White House — after dropping it from 39% through his 2017 tax-cuts legislation.

Harris has proposed raising the top corporate tax rate to 28% while increasing capital gains taxes on annual profits exceeding $1 million from 20% to 28%.

The Democrat did not explicitly mention during her tax-policy speech Wednesday whether she still supports plans to tax unrealized capital gains, but her reference to a “billionaire minimum tax” used the same terminology as has been applied in the past.

“Unbelievably, she will seek a tax on unrealized capital gains,” Trump said Thursday.

“If you happen to have a lot of wealth but no cash, you’re a lot of trouble… with these policies, especially the tax on unrealized capital gains… companies and innovation would flee from America to other countries. Venture capital markets would disappear. The stock market would be annihilated… and senior pensions would totally go up in smoke.”

In another distinction between the candidates, Trump doubled down on plans to increase tariffs on foreign goods — a threat he repeatedly used as a bargaining tactic as president before ultimately following through with enacting tariffs on many Chinese goods as well as steel and aluminum from most countries.

“Smart tariffs will not create inflation. They will combat inflation,” Trump said.

“I had almost no inflation, and I had the highest tariffs that anyone’s seen, and they were going a lot higher. Foreign nations will pay us hundreds of billions of dollars, reducing the deficit and driving inflation down.”

During a question-and-answer session, Trump contended “I stopped wars with the threat of tariffs.”

Harris has alleged that the former president’s tariff plan would amount to a “national sales tax” on consumers.

Both Trump and Harris are proposing new tax write-offs — with the Democrat pitching a deduction for business startup expenses from $5,000 to $50,000 and Trump vowing to allow tax perks for manufacturing investments and research and development.

Trump has additionally proposed eliminating federal income taxes on tipped income and Social Security payments, and said he’s looking at potential legislation to reduce childcare costs.

The ex-president jeered Harris for adopting his “no tax on tips” pledge.

“We will have no tax on tips, something which they copied four weeks after I said it. She got up, said, ‘No tax on tips,'” Trump said.

“We’re going to send her a ‘MAGA’ cap sometime in the next week… But we also know she doesn’t mean it.”