Elon Musk’s time as a special government employee is coming to an end after leading President Donald Trump’s “Department of Government Efficiency.”
“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,” Mr. Musk said in a May 28 X post. “The [DOGE] mission will only strengthen over time as it becomes a way of life throughout the government.”
Mr. Musk, who is also the CEO of Tesla, began his White House offboarding process on May 28, CBS News reported.
DOGE has produced an estimated $175 billion in savings through cuts in areas like workforce, grants, programmatic changes, and fraud and improper payment deletion since it was established in late January, according to its website.
The organization’s cuts have also led to multiple lawsuits from attorneys general over personal information access concerns, along with deep workforce cuts to HHS, stalled healthcare payments and federal funding cuts that could significantly affect academic healthcare research.
Mr. Musk’s government exit comes after he criticized the President Trump-backed “One Big Beautiful Bill,” which passed through the House of Representatives on May 22 and proposes significant cuts to Medicaid and ACA reforms.
“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,” Mr. Musk said during a CBS Sunday Morning interview.
In response to Mr. Musk’s comment, President Trump said that while he was “not happy about certain aspects” of the bill, he was “thrilled by other aspects of it,” USA Today reported May 28.
