WEBDESK: Elon Musk, on Wednesday, has announced that he is stepping down from his role in the U.S. government, marking the end of a surprising chapter in his career. Known for leading Tesla and SpaceX, Musk had taken on the role of head of the Department of Government Efficiency, also known as DOGE.
“As my scheduled time as a Special Government Employee comes to an end, I would like to thank President Donald Trump for the opportunity to reduce wasteful spending,” he wrote on his social media platform X.
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.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 29, 2025
The @DOGE mission will only strengthen over time as it becomes a way of life throughout the government.
His departure comes after a rare and public disagreement with former President Donald Trump. The disagreement centered on Trump’s massive spending plan, the “One Big, Beautiful Bill Act.” Elon Musk criticized the bill, saying it would increase the national deficit and go against DOGE’s mission to cut wasteful government spending.
“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,” Elon Musk said in an interview with CBS News, an excerpt of which aired late Tuesday.
Trump’s “One Big, Beautiful Bill Act” – which passed the US House last week and now moves to the Senate – offers sprawling tax relief and spending cuts and is the centrepiece of his domestic agenda.
But critics warn it will decimate health care and balloon the national deficit by as much as $4 trillion over a decade.
Elon Musk had accepted the government role to help make federal operations more efficient. Under his leadership, DOGE cut down staffing and aimed to reduce unnecessary costs. However, Musk became frustrated over time, saying the government’s deeply rooted bureaucracy made real change almost impossible.
Despite the clash, Elon Musk thanked President Trump for the opportunity. He added that he hoped the work started by DOGE would still influence how the government operates in the future. “Efficiency, transparency, and innovation should be part of every department,” he said.
Trump tasked Elon Musk with cutting government spending as head of DOGE, but after a feverish start, Musk announced in late April he was mostly stepping back to run his companies again.
“DOGE is just becoming the whipping boy for everything,” Musk told the Washington Post at the Starbase launch site in Texas ahead of Space X’s latest launch on Tuesday.
“Something bad would happen anywhere, and we would get blamed for it even if we had nothing to do with it.”
The tycoon last week also said he would pull back from spending his fortune on politics, having spent around a quarter of a billion dollars to support Trump.
