Elon Musk’s days as a senior White House adviser may be coming to an end — along with his government-slashing Department of Government Efficiency.
President Donald Trump hinted Monday that his close ally Musk may have to go back to running his companies full time and that the tumultuous mission of DOGE will have been accomplished after firing tens of thousands of government employees.
“I think he’s amazing but I also think he’s got a big company to run and so at some point he’s going to be going back,” Trump said of the Tesla CEO. “He wants to. I’d keep him as long as I could keep him.”
The president’s comments, made at a White House signing ceremony for an executive order calling for increased scrutiny of concert ticket resellers, came amid growing public concern about the chaos and turmoil caused by DOGE — and as the once high-flying Tesla appears to be heading for a hard landing.
Musk is classed as a temporary government employee, with a 130-day cap on his services at the White House. Under that designation, his tenure would conclude at the end of May. But a White House official told POLITICO in February that there was no end in sight to his time working alongside Trump, and that he was “here to stay.”
Since joining the government, Musk has — by his own description — taken a chainsaw to the federal workforce, including by moving to eliminate agencies such as the United States Agency for International Development and the United States Institute of Peace. The effort is not popular, though, with more than half of voters in a recent Quinnipiac poll saying the billionaire and DOGE are hurting the country.
Trump told reporters at the White House that the influence of DOGE would linger because Cabinet members and agency heads have “gotten a big education” from the experience. “There will be a point at which the secretaries will be able to do this work.”
Tesla, meanwhile, is hitting major turbulence. Sales of its electric cars are plummeting around the world as Musk-fueled rage makes the vehicles increasingly unpopular with consumers who once flocked to the brand. The company’s share price plunged 36 percent in the first quarter.
Musk appeared to set the stage for his departure at the 130-day mark in an interview with Fox News last week, saying “I think we will have accomplished most of the work required to reduce the deficit by a trillion dollars within that time frame.”
