Why is this "co-chair" thing such a gotcha? How is this different from having two founders?

When has two co-equal bosses ever made things more efficient?

If you had two people as SecDef Musk would use that as a perfect example of inefficiency.

> How is this different from having two founders?

One typically functions as CEO.

As far as I can tell this group won't have any actual power, so why not?

Well, it's having two people where one would do. On a committee that is about efficiency and removing waste.

Then there's the "unpaid volunteers" thing. You don't get the best and brightest that way; the best and brightest already have things to do with their time. The state of civic involvement these days means that the best and brightest are not just going to drop what they're doing in order to serve their country for no money. Instead, you're going to get two kinds of people: 1) ideological warriors, and 2) people who can bend things in directions that will make them money. That's not going to produce good results.