Elon Musk hoped to transform the federal government by making it significantly smaller. However, his efforts proved to be more challenging than he had hoped.
Elon Musk officially leaves the Trump administration
Elon Musk is leaving the Trump administration after he allocated 130 days for the “special government officials” to end.
- Elon Musk leaves Doge without meeting his ambitious government savings targets.
- The White House has no plans to replace Musk.
- Several other Doge employees chased the musk through the door.
Worthington – Elon Musk arrived at the White House with a bang. He was a chainsaw slash of the government, and the chief sidekick of President Donald Trump, who promised to thwart the federal bureaucracy.
However, he left without the same sw walk four months later after splitting with Trump over the president’s signature tax and failing to realize the transformational savings he hoped to significantly reduce the size of his government.
The White House looked ready to move on when Musk (the wealthiest man in the world once approaching Trump, who spent one night in the White House’s Lincoln bedroom during his visit) finally announced in a May 28th post on X, the social media platform he owns.
“The off-boarding process has begun,” a White House official told USA Today.
Trump said he will hold a press conference on Friday afternoon, an evening on May 29th about True Social.
Let’s look back at what led to the mask exit and what went on to the efficiency of the government he once led.
Musk doesn’t meet your dog’s goals
Doge quickly incited across the federal government, gained control of information technology infrastructure, inducing federal contracts, eliminating entire agencies, and pushing out and launching tens of thousands of federal employees.
But Tesla and SpaceX CEO Musk are leaving after falling well below Doge’s ambitious government savings target.
Musk had its goal of Doge cutting $1 trillion from the federal government in order to eradicate what he called “waste, fraud, abuse” by the next fiscal year that begins October 1st. He was talking about roughly $2 trillion cuts on the 2024 campaign trail when Trump was confused.
“If you try $2 trillion, I think there’s a good shot to get 1 trillion (trillion),” Musk said on Jan. 9.
However, Doge’s total savings posted on the Doge website are currently equivalent to $175 billion, rather than 20% of the $1 trillion. And this does not take into account the potential exaggerations or errors in Doge’s calculations. This was the group’s previous declared saving theme.
In both the left and right researchers, in Doge, which was flagged for increasing the Department of Education’s savings by hundreds of millions of dollars, the group argued that the cancelled contract would be worth $8 billion if it was actually $8 million.
Also, some of Doge’s savings will be offset by the costs of imposing layoffs, defending legality in court, and rehiring workers who win the lawsuit. The nonpartisan partnership in public services estimates Doge’s actions will cost $135 billion this fiscal year, not taking into account the fact that removing IRS agents will lead to a decline in tax revenue.
more: Elon Musk speaks Lincoln’s bedroom stay, late-night ice cream when he returns from the Doge
Prior to his departure, Musk was increasingly irritated by the pace of cuts slowed down by legal set-offs and other political hurdles blocking his efforts to sabotage the government.
In a May 1 interview with USA Today and other media outlets, Musk acknowledged that he may not be able to meet his savings goals. “I might not be successful,” Musk said. “There’s a lot of inertia in the government when it comes to cost savings.”
Despite his departure, Musk told the Washington Post this week that Doge’s next focus will be modifying the federal government’s aging computer system.
Peakmusk as the face of the Trump administration
At the peak of his influence, Musk became the most prominent face of the Trump administration, besides Trump himself.
The masks began on the first day of Trump’s second season. And he was everywhere. With the president, next to Trump in his oval office, he wore a black maga hat over his shoulder with his 4-year-old son X, and a black maga hat that was featured in Trump’s first joint speech since returning to the White House.
In a particularly enthusiastic display of his power, Trump was blown away by Argentine President Javier Mairei with the talented AA sparkle when he appeared at a conservative political action conference in February.
In March, after Musk’s role in the White House led to public backlash against Tesla, Trump tried to help in opening the White House south lawn to display Tesla’s vehicles despite blatant ethical concerns.
more: Elon Musk wields a chainsaw on stage and says he and Trump are fighting the “Matrix”
Fade out from musk
Gradually, however, the mask began to disappear as it became politically responsible for Trump. Polls consistently show that more Americans have an undesirable view of Musk than more Americans do not like them.
Musk has clashed with several Trump officials over his cost-cutting agenda, including Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Treasury Secretary Scott Bescent and Trump’s top trade adviser Peter Navarro.
And Musk suffered an embarrassing set-off when he declared “the future of America and Western civilization” when he spent $20 million to support Republican-backed candidates in Wisconsin’s Supreme Court race.
During the cabinet meeting, Trump was held to reporters in April, and Musk only spoke for a few minutes. When a mask wearing a black t-shirt reading “Technical Support” promoted Doge’s efforts to cleanse the government with ministers, it was far from Trump’s first cabinet meeting in February, when the mask wearing a black t-shirt reading “Technical Support.”
A few weeks later, Musk announced that he would scale back its role at Doge on April 22 after Tesla reported a massive 71% first-quarter profit loss that coincides with his polarized tenure at the White House.
more: Tesla’s profits plummeted 71% amid backlash against masks’ role with the Trump administration
Exodus of other Doge aides
The exit of the mask as a leader of Doge came as his designation as a “special civil servant.”
His departure leaves a big gap in Doge, and it is unclear how much power the group will maintain without its famous leader.
Other top clumsy employees chased the door after Musk, White House officials confirmed. These include Steve Davis, the head of masks who oversaw masks’ daily operations, spokesperson Katie Miller and Doge’s chief attorney James Burnham. Like Musk, each worked as a special government employee.
more: Elon Musk takes the back seat after Donald Trump took office 100 days
No one has exchanged musks so far
With more than 100 employees on staff, Doge is expected to continue operating until the summer of 2026 under an executive order signed in January.
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt did not point out one individual who would replace Musk.
“The Doge leaders are all members of the President’s Cabinet and the President himself,” Leavitt said at a May 29 briefing with reporters.
more: Elon Musk leaves the Trump administration and closes his run as a federal slash
In its court declaration that combats the challenges to mask authority, the White House previously claimed that he was not a Doge employee, but a White House adviser overseeing Doge. Instead, Trump’s lawyers argued that the Doge administrator was Amy Gleason, a little-known Doge aide and former employee of US Digital Services. However, Leavitt spoke to Doge’s future about Gleason, so he didn’t mention Gleason.
Musk breaking with Trump on tax and spending bills
His dissatisfaction with the cost-cutting crusades extends to Trump’s domestic agenda outlined in the law that the president created his “big, beautiful bill.”
The day before his departure, Musk broke with Trump by criticizing Trump’s settlement bill, which includes Trump’s tax cuts, border security measures and other spending measures.
“Frankly, I was disappointed to see the massive spending bill. This not only reduces it, it also increases the budget deficit and undermines the work the Doge team is doing,” Musk said in an interview with “CBS Sunday Morning” on May 27.
more: Elon Musk “disappointed” at the costs of Trump’s tax bill, says it will undermine the work he is working for.
The Non-partisan Congressional Budget Office estimated the bill would add $3.8 trillion to citizen debt over the next decade.
“I think the bill will grow or it might be beautiful, but I don’t know if it’s both. My personal opinion,” Musk said in an interview.
Trump did not swipe with the mask when reporters asked for a response to Musk’s comments. He suggested instead that the high price tag was the result of a tough decision to bring all Republicans into a home where the GOP has a narrow majority.
“We’re going to negotiate that bill. I’m not happy with certain aspects of it, but I’m excited about the other aspects of it,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office on May 28th.
Leavit also refused to take a farewell shot with a mask when asked about his criticism. “We appreciate his service,” she said. “We would like to thank him for letting Doge down the ground and will continue to make efforts to reduce waste fraud and abuse.
Musk says he spends much less money on politics
However, Mash still managed to find the spotlight despite plans to take on the smaller doge role.
Musk was tagged during the three-country swing to the Middle East of Trump’s 3-country 3-country. He attended the Oval Office Meeting on May 21 with President Cyril Ramaphosa of South Africa, Musk’s home country.
And he continued to talk publicly about politics and his experiences with Doge, even as he took part in media interviews designed to spotlight his work on SpaceX and Tesla.
more: “I did it well”: Elon Musk says he’ll spend “much less” money on politics
Musk, a Republican mega-donor who helped Trump Bankrupt Trump’s 2024 campaign, said last week he intends to significantly cut his political spending in future elections in order to focus more time on his business.
“From a political spending perspective, I think I’m going to do that little in the future,” Musk told the Bloomberg News Qatar Economic Forum on May 20. “I think I did it well.”
A week later, in an interview with the Washington Post, Musk complained about Doge, who unfairly denounced the wrongdoing in the Trump administration.
“Doge has become a whip boy for everything,” Musk said. “So something bad will happen everywhere and we’ll blame it if it had nothing to do with it.”
Reach Joey Garrison with X @joeygarrison.
