Elon Musk, the world's richest and perhaps its most disruptive person, is leaving his role in Washington - ending his controversial 130-day tenure in the Trump administration as a "Special Government Employee."
“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,” Musk wrote on X.
“The DOGE mission will only strengthen over time as it becomes a way of life throughout the government.”
According to Reuters, a White House official said the post was accurate and Musk is leaving the administration and his “off-boarding will begin tonight.”
Musk was granted carte blanche to do what Washington claims to want to do but never manages to - cut the fat, crack some skulls and make things more efficient.
He headed up the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) - and in just over four months - helped slash nearly 12% of the federal civilian workforce, with more than 260,000 people losing their jobs.
White House Office of Management and Budget Director Russ Vought said in a Fox Business interview on Wednesday "We are doing everything we can to codify DOGE cuts", through a bill in Congress known as a recission package similar to this one.
Translation: a way for Congress to cancel funds it had previously appropriated - but that the federal government has not yet spent.
Leaving of his own accord
The billionaire had been alluding to leaving DOGE all week, citing his commitment to returning to his business ventures such as Tesla, which is recovering from a sharp drop in share price since the beginning of the year.
His leaving of his Washington post came just hours after he again criticised Trump's “big, beautiful bill”, which involves tax cuts and more money for immigration checks and balances.
Speaking on camera to CBS on Monday, Musk said he was disappointed to see the “massive spending bill".
“[It] increases the budget deficit, not just decreases it, and undermines the work that the DOGE team is doing.”
“The federal bureaucracy situation is much worse than I realised,” Musk told the Washington Post on Tuesday.
“I thought there were problems, but it sure is an uphill battle trying to improve things in DC, to say the least.”
