Elon Musk listens throughout a bilateral assembly between President Trump and South Africa President Cyril Ramaphosa on the White Home on Might 21, 2025. Musk introduced this week that he was leaving the Trump administration and returning to give attention to his companies.
Chip Somodevilla/Getty Photos
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Chip Somodevilla/Getty Photos
Elon Musk is leaving his position because the guiding power behind the Division of Authorities Effectivity initiative Friday after dealing with authorized setbacks, clashes with Cupboard members and little proof to help claims of financial savings or authorities effectivity.
Musk is about to hitch President Trump for a closing press convention within the Oval Workplace on Friday afternoon, capping a 130-day tenure that additionally noticed Musk face rising unfavorability numbers, monetary stress on his enterprise empire and a rift between the world’s richest man and its strongest political chief.
Framing his departure as the top of his “scheduled time” as a particular authorities worker, Musk’s departure from the federal authorities will possible do little to vary DOGE’s work finishing up Trump’s imaginative and prescient of shrinking the federal paperwork and purging it of individuals and packages that the president disagrees with.
His position inside the White Home has been nebulous and complicated. Whereas Trump and others have touted Musk because the chief of DOGE’s restructuring efforts, legal professionals for the federal government have insisted the billionaire has no authorized authority and have downplayed his efforts.
This week, a federal decide allowed a case difficult Musk and DOGE’s authority inside the federal authorities to proceed, and several other others are nonetheless pending.
However lots of Musk’s allies are embedded throughout federal businesses as full-time workers, like a gaggle of younger staffers primarily based within the Normal Companies Administration who’ve been making an attempt to push DOGE’s attain past the manager department – in some circumstances attempting to embed in non-governmental and non-executive department entities.
Different lawsuits have targeted on one space DOGE has seen nice success in: amassing delicate authorities knowledge and mixing it into huge databases. A number of federal judges have raised issues about DOGE’s knowledge entry and what they plan to do with it. In some circumstances, it seems DOGE and the Trump administration are utilizing the info for immigration enforcement functions.
Musk’s golden chainsaw misplaced its tooth
Earlier than becoming a member of the second Trump administration, Musk had a lofty purpose of slashing $2 trillion from the federal price range. Earlier this yr, Musk famously took the stage on the Conservative Political Motion Convention, wielding a chainsaw for instance his push to chop spending. However his goal quantity was revised downward a number of occasions, finally touchdown at round $150 billion he claimed can be saved by the top of the fiscal yr in September.
NPR’s reporting has repeatedly discovered DOGE’s financial savings claims to be overstated, inaccurate and rooted in a elementary misunderstanding of how the federal price range works.
This week, Musk expressed displeasure at President Trump’s so-called “Huge, Stunning Invoice” of priorities that handed the Home. In an interview with CBShe mentioned the measure’s projected addition to the deficit and debt “undermines the work that the DOGE group is doing.” Past the price range, among the different signature DOGE efforts have been reversed or held up by the courts, just like the push to fireplace federal staff and shut businesses. A few of the lawsuits have used Musk’s public statements and social media posts to argue these modifications broke the regulation.
Musk’s push for a mandate that federal workers ought to ship quick emails itemizing weekly accomplishments was overruled by some Cupboard heads and was one in every of a number of methods his Silicon Valley background clashed with the methods of Washington.
Reporting from NPR and different retailers has highlighted quite a few examples of DOGE-led modifications which have possible made the federal government much less environment friendly. That features issues like: the elimination of a tech unit inside GSA that helped enhance digital providers throughout businesses; encouraging a return-to-office push with shortages of desks, web entry and even rest room paper; spending freezes on authorities fee playing cards that disrupted staff’ skill to purchase fundamental provides and extra.
What’s subsequent for Musk?
The particular authorities worker designation provides Musk an exit from authorities that elected politicians don’t simply have. Musk will return to his a number of corporations at a time when his enterprise empire has seen monetary setbacks, particularly at Tesla, his foremost supply of wealth.
As Musk’s DOGE work ramped up, Tesla house owners bought their automobiles, storefronts have been vandalized and earnings dropped as some reviews recommended the automaker’s board was seeking to exchange Musk.
Musk has already pivoted extra of his prolific posting on his social media web site X to Tesla, SpaceX and Starlink – although not earlier than saying his departure from the federal authorities by promising DOGE would solely develop stronger “because it turns into a lifestyle all through the federal government.”
And after spending a whole bunch of hundreds of thousands of {dollars} to help Trump’s re-election, and an unsuccessful push to affect a Wisconsin state Supreme Courtroom race, Musk introduced final week that he would decelerate his political spending.
“I will do so much much less sooner or later,” he mentioned in a video interview with Bloomberg Information on the Qatar Financial Discussion board. “I believe I’ve achieved sufficient.”
NPR’s Bobby Allyn contributed reporting.
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