Elon Musk thanked President Trump in a message Wednesday, marking the end of his special administration employee status, the latest sign of his involvement in the White House.
Musk thanked Trump for the opportunity to lead the Department of Administration Efficiency (DOGE) in his post on X, a group dedicated to dramatically reducing the size of the federal budget and workforce.
“As my scheduled time as a special government employee ends, I want 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 for the entire government.”
As a special employee of the administration, Musk was limited to Trump’s service for 130 days and was most of the time when the new administration on the presidential side began.
“Start offline tonight,” a White House official told the news agency Wednesday night.
During his tenure, Musk made it clear that he planned to become a political force in some capacity after his formal government status ended. But as Musk and Doge’s missions lag behind Trump’s tax cuts, expected to add trillions of dollars in national debt, the tech billionaire has worked harder to return to his business empire.
“Back to work hours 24/7, sleep in the conference/server/factory room,” Musk said on Saturday, responding to posts on X about the platform’s recent power outage.
He added: “I have to be super focused on X/XAI and Tesla (plus next week’s Starship launch) because we have key technologies being launched.”
Tesla’s shares soared Tuesday after Memorial Day came to meet Musk’s new concerns. Later that day, Musk expressed frustration at Trump’s main policy bill in a CBS interview on Sunday.
“Frankly, I’m disappointed to see a large spending bill that has increased the budget deficit … and undermined the work the Doge team did,” Musk said in a preview interview this weekend in a “CBS Sunday Aunday Morning.”
When asked about Wednesday’s comments, Trump abandoned Musk’s criticism and defended the measure while acknowledging that the measure included rules he didn’t like, but was necessary for passing Congress.
“We’re going to negotiate the bill, and I’m not happy with some aspects of it, but I’m excited about the others,” Trump said. “That’s how it develops. It’s big, it’s big and beautiful, but the reason it’s beautiful is because of everything we have.”
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