- Elon Musk’s time as a special government employee and “first buddy” to President Donald Trump has come to an end. In a post on X, the world’s richest man thanked Trump and praised the legacy of DOGE, saying it would become “a way of life throughout the government.”
Elon Musk has wrapped up his time with President Donald Trump’s administration. In a post on X, the billionaire Tesla CEO announced the end of his formal role as an unpaid special government employee with 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 Donald Trump for the opportunity to reduce wasteful spending,” Musk wrote. “The DOGE mission will only strengthen over time as it becomes a way of life throughout the government.”
Musk in April had previously pledged to spend “a day or two per week on government matters for as long as the President would like me to do so, as long as it is useful” to assuage Tesla investors who wanted the CEO to focus on the electric vehicle manufacturer. At the time, Musk said he would have to soldier on with DOGE in order to keep the “waste and fraud” from reappearing.
“I’ll have to continue doing it,” Musk told Tesla investors and analysts during an earnings call. “I think we have the remainder of the President’s term just to make sure that the waste and fraud that we stopped does not come roaring back, which it’ll do if it has the chance.”
However, some noted the timing seemed to coincide with a CBS News interview teased yesterday, in which Musk said that he was disappointed in Trump’s “Big, Beautiful Bill” and that it “undermines the work that the DOGE team is doing.”
“I think a bill can be big or it can be beautiful, I don’t know if it can be both,” Musk said during the interview.
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.
The @DOGE mission will only strengthen over time as it becomes a way of life throughout the government.— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 29, 2025
Trump’s legislative agenda includes a sweeping package of major tax cuts, stricter Medicaid and food-assistance requirements, and more than $45 billion in spending on immigration and border security in addition to $150 billion in new defense spend.
Musk endorsed Trump in July 2024, right after an assassination attempt on the then candidate, and later reportedly committed around $45 million a month to a new pro-Trump superPAC called America PAC.
After the election, Trump announced that Musk and former presidential candidate rival Vivek Ramaswamy (who soon dropped out) would lead a new Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). Musk called himself the “First Buddy” while then-President-elect Trump joked that he “couldn’t get rid of” Musk and that “Elon won’t go home.”
Under Musk, DOGE claimed to have saved over $160 billion—far lower than the $1 trillion that Musk initially aimed to save in government waste. The DOGE team pushed for the departures and retirements of thousands of federal workers and cut spending on foreign food and medical aid.
A New York Times analysis found that nearly 60,000 federal positions had been cut and another 76,000 had taken buyouts, while there are planned reductions of nearly 150,000 more.