Washington D.C. May 31: Tech Billionaire Elon Musk who had arrived in Washington, D.C., with high hopes of power and provit, went in a vain.
Musk left the Oval Office he frequented as a coveted government servant of international repute, a frontline leader of the Department of Government Efficiency, went back home with a literal and reputational black eye.
He not only left the government office only, but also distanced himself from Donald Trump of course to unlock cost savings.
The billionaire is now stepping away from his government work to focus more on his businesses such as electric car company Tesla, which was targeted by protesters and has seen sales slip.
Musk says while receiving a sendoff at the Oval Office, he'll still be around.
Musk's exit as the DOGE leader came as his designation as a "special government employee" ‒ which allowed him to stay on the job for 130 calendar days a year ‒ ended.
"My time as a special government employee necessarily had to end, it was a limited-time thing," Musk said May 30.
The billionaire vowed that DOGE's work will continue, though, calling it a "way of life" that is "permeating throughout the government."
President Donald Trump and Elon Musk attend a press conference in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, D.C., U.S., May 30, 2025.
Musk also said he'll still continue to visit and consult with Trump.
“Elon’s really not leaving, he’s going to be back and forth… it’s his baby," Trump said.
Yet Musk has taken steps to distance himself from politics and the Trump administration after a tumultuous period. He recently said he plans to spend "a lot less" money on campaigns − after dropping $290 million getting Trump elected and $20 million on a losing judicial race in Wisconsin − and attracted attention for criticizing Trump's top legislative priority, saying it would add to the deficit and "undermine the work that the DOGE team is doing."
The backlash to DOGE hurt Musk's reputation. He also suffered some physical pain recently, the result of "horsing around" with his 5-year-old son, X.
Elon Musk stands in the Oval Office to attend a press conference with U.S. President Donald Trump, at the White House in Washington, D.C., U.S., May 30, 2025.
"I said, 'Go ahead, punch me in the face.' And he did it," Musk said in the Oval Office in explaining his black eye.
The injury prompted immediate speculation on social media. Musk's 14 children have been a source of fascination as he stepped into the public spotlight to lead the Department of Government Efficiency, with X spending weeks tagging along in the Oval Office and around Capitol Hill.
On the other hand, President Donald Trump marked the end of Musk's tenure as a government employee with an event in the Oval Office May 30, where he thanked the billionaire for his work leading the Department of Government Efficiency and gave him a golden key.
“Elon’s delivered a colossal change in the old ways of doing business in Washington,” Trump declared.
The warm sendoff came after Musk struggled to unlock cost savings in the federal government, delivering far less than what he promised. He leaves Washington D.C. a much more polarizing figure, the subject of intense criticism and protests that have dinged his business empire.
Musk showed up in the Oval Office dressed all in black, from his DOGE hat to his t-shirt and blazer. He also had a black eye given to him by his young son.
Musk's DOGE work, meanwhile, left his reputation badly bruised, which formed the subtext of much of the Oval Office gathering.Trump complained about the billionaire suffering "the slings and the arrows" and Musk said DOGE became a "bogeyman."
Musk used DOGE to bulldoze through the federal government, shuttering whole agencies and instituting mass layoffs. The result, he said May 30, is about $160 billion in savings so far, far below the $2 trillion he talked about on the campaign trail and $1 trillion he pledged after Trump took office.
Critics opined that Musk hurt vital programs with indiscriminate cutting and nonpartisan researchers calculated that most of the savings will be wiped out by the costs of reinstating workers whose firings were illegal, defending those cases in court, and other effects like lost revenue from shrinking the IRS. The resulting backlash took a toll.
