Elon Musk’s days as an advisor at the White House may be coming to an end, along with his government efficiency department, according to Politico.
President Donald Trump suggested on Monday that his close ally Musk may be forced to return to running his companies full-time, and that the tumultuous mission of DOGE will be accomplished after the firing of tens of thousands of government employees. “I think it’s amazing, but I also think he has a big company to run, so at some point he will come back,” Trump said about the CEO of Tesla. “He wants to. I would keep him as long as I could,” he added. The President’s comments, made at a ceremony at the White House for an executive order calling for increased control of concert ticket resellers, come amid growing public concern about the chaos and disruption caused by DOGE – and as Tesla, once on a meteoric rise, seems to be heading for a hard landing.Musk is classified as a temporary government employee, with a cap of 130 days for his services at the White House. Under this designation, his term should end at the end of May. But a White House official told Politico in February that his time working with Trump will not end and that “he’ll stay on.” Since joining the government, Musk has been – in his own words – “a buzzsaw” for the federal workforce, including by eliminating agencies such as the United States Agency for International Development and the United States Institute of Peace.However, the effort is not popular, with over half of voters in a recent Quinnipiac poll saying the billionaire and DOGE are harming the country. Trump told reporters at the White House that DOGE’s influence will persist because the Cabinet members and agency heads have “gotten a great education” from this experience. “There will be a time when secretaries will be able to do this work.” Meanwhile, Tesla is facing major turbulence. Electric car sales are declining worldwide, as Musk-fueled rage makes vehicles increasingly unpopular among consumers. The company’s stock price has dropped by 36% in the first quarter. Musk seemed to be preparing the stage for his departure at the 130-day mark in an interview with Fox News last week, saying, “I think we will have done most of the necessary work to reduce the deficit by a trillion dollars in this time frame.”
