Elon Musk Says He’s Leaving the Department of Government Efficiency

Elon Musk announced he is departing from his government role as a top adviser to President Donald Trump.

The 53-year-old businessman posted to X on Wednesday, May 28, sharing his decision to leave the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).

“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,” he wrote. “The @DOGE mission will only strengthen over time as it becomes a way of life throughout the government.”

Musk losing his special government employee status is expected because his role had a set end date. However, a White House official confirmed to the Associated Press that Musk was leaving rather than just stepping into a less official role.

Since Trump’s second term began, Musk has served as a White House adviser heading DOGE and worked to make major cuts to areas of the government the administration deems unnecessary.

However, his departure comes one day after he criticized Trump’s budget legislation agenda, explaining that he is “disappointed” in Trump’s “Big, Beautiful Bill.”

The bill was passed in the House of Representatives on May 22. It is funding its tax cuts and military spending in part by cutting some federal health and energy programs. However, it is also poised to add an estimated $3.8 trillion to the national deficit, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office.

Musk said he feels that the new legislation could soon undercut DOGE’s work.

“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,” he told CBS Sunday Morning in an interview that will air in full on June 1.

Musk also told The Washington Post on Tuesday, May 27, that he felt his DOGE project was taking a significant portion of the blame for unrelated problems in the Trump administration.

“DOGE is just becoming the whipping boy for everything,” he said. “So, like, something bad would happen anywhere, and we would get blamed for it even if we had nothing to do with it.”

“The federal bureaucracy situation is much worse than I realized,” Musk added. “I thought there were problems, but it sure is an uphill battle trying to improve things in D.C., to say the least.”

Prior to Musk’s departure, multiple sources claimed in early April at Politico and ABC News that the president had informed his inner circle that Musk would be shifting into a “supporting role” at the White House and returning to his business ventures.

Politico also reported on Tuesday, April 2, that some White House insiders “increasingly view [Musk] as a political liability.” However, the next day, Vice President J.D. Vance indicated in a Fox & Friends interview that those reports may have been overblown.

“DOGE has got a lot of work to do, and yeah, that work is going to continue after Elon leaves,” Vance said. “But fundamentally, Elon is going to remain a friend and an adviser of both me and the president.”