Elon Musk said goodbye to his position in President Donald Trump’s government Wednesday evening, according to media reports. It is unclear whether the latest disaster at SpaceX spurred his decision to not extend his stay at the White House.
Musk resigns from his official government role:
“As my scheduled time as a Special Government Employee comes to an end, I would like to thank President @realDonaldTrump for the opportunity to reduce wasteful spending,” Musk wrote. “The @DOGE mission will only strengthen over time as it becomes a way of life throughout the government.”
One can only wonder if his string of disasters at both his companies SpaceX and Tesla had anything to do with his decision. Musk has a lot of cleaning up to do at the companies he abandoned, SpaceX suffered the loss of its Flight 9 craft immediately after being cleared by the Federal Aviation Authority (FAA), while the board at Tesla want to renegotiate his pay package, the embattled billionaire sure will have his hands full once he returns to his business ventures.
READ: DOGE goes after consulting firms under Trump (March 7, 2025)
When Musk was appointed by President Trump to lead the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), the initiative set ambitious goals, including cutting $1 trillion from federal spending and eliminating wasteful expenditures. DOGE aimed to streamline government operations by downsizing federal agencies, terminating contracts, and reducing the federal workforce.
Under Musk’s leadership, the department reported savings of $160 billion through measures such as canceling contracts and leases, as well as laying off employees. However, these figures have been contested, with analyses suggesting that the cuts may have cost taxpayers $135 billion in the current fiscal year. Musk’s tenure was marked by controversy, including mass layoffs of federal employees and public criticism of a significant spending bill that he argued undermined DOGE’s objectives. His departure from the role coincides with the expiration of his 130-day term as a special government employee.
Not to mention, Musk apparently wasn’t a fan of the “Big Beautiful Bill” either. In an interview this week with CBS News’ David Pogue, Musk said “I was disappointed to see the massive spending bill, frankly, which increases the budget deficit, not just decreases it, and undermines the work that the DOGE team is doing.”
Musk didn’t stop there either — in an interview this week with The Washington Post, Musk said that the federal bureaucracy situation is much worse than he realized and that he thought there were problems but it sure was an uphill battle trying to improve things in D.C., to say the least.
So, it seems that his departure from Trump’s side may not be on the best of terms after all.