On Friday, President Trump gave a send-off to Elon Musk in the Oval Office as the billionaire now shifts his attention back to his businesses.
Musk, wearing a black outfit and sporting a noticeable black eye, stood beside the president during a joint news conference. The gathering was meant to signal that Trump continues to support the billionaire entrepreneur.
During the event, the president presented Musk with a golden key and described him as someone who has endured “slings and arrows,” suggesting that public criticism of Musk has been unfair. “He had to go through the slings and the arrows, which is a shame,” Trump said.
In recent months, Tesla has faced protests, acts of vandalism, and a steep decline in its stock price. Many of these challenges have followed Musk’s growing involvement with DOGE and cost-cutting efforts.
By publicly endorsing Musk, Trump aimed to show that he stands firmly behind the man who played a significant role in his own political comeback.
The relationship between Trump and Musk, however, was not always smooth. At one point, Musk suggested that Trump should not run for office. In response, Trump even posted on social media in 2022 that he “could have said, ‘Drop to your knees and beg,’ and he would have done it.”
Despite that rocky start, the two eventually found common ground. Elon Musk donated generously to Trump’s political campaign and offered praise on social media. In turn, President Trump allowed Musk to be involved in various federal agencies without much resistance.
In February, he even took to the stage at the Conservative Political Action Conference carrying a chainsaw, saying it was “easy” to “save billions of dollars sometimes in, in an hour.” That display drew attention, but in practice, Musk’s team did not come near to achieving the goal of cutting $1 trillion from the federal budget.
Musk admits that cutting costs was far more difficult than he had anticipated
By Friday, however, Musk admitted that identifying and securing huge savings proved far more difficult than he had anticipated.
Standing alongside Trump, he described the task of reviewing government spending as “extraordinarily time-consuming and difficult,” involving careful scrutiny of countless line items. “It’s mostly just a lot of hard work,” he said.
Even though Musk was stepping away from his formal role in DOGE, both men insisted the effort would continue. Trump noted that Musk had “installed geniuses with an engineering mindset and unbelievably talented people in computers” to carry on the work in multiple agencies.
“Elon is really not leaving,” the President said. “He’s going to be back and forth. I have a feeling it’s his baby.”
Musk reiterated that the cost-cutting effort is far from over
Musk promised that DOGE will achieve $1 trillion in cuts eventually, even though the DOGE website currently lists $175 billion in proposed cuts. “This is not the end of DOGE, but really the beginning,” he said, likening the effort to a way of life, “like Buddhism.”
During the news conference, a reporter asked Musk about a recent report in The New York Times suggesting he had been using drugs more heavily than was previously known. Musk did not address the report’s specifics, instead criticizing the newspaper’s credibility and saying, “Let’s move on.”
Another question focused on Musk’s black eye. He explained that it was the result of roughhousing with his 5-year-old son, X. “I said, ‘Go ahead, punch me in the face,’”
Musk recalled. “And he did.” His answer drew laughter and eased the tension in the room for a moment.
Toward the end of the session, Musk rejoined the discussion to criticize federal judges who have upheld limits on the administration’s power. He accused judges of “immense judicial overreach that is unconstitutional.” “It needs to stop,” he said. “It’s gone too far.”
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