DOGE days are over
Despite the backing of Donald Trump and his legion of dedicated supporters, Elon Musk's efforts to slash government spending had little chance in the face of the bureaucratic behemoth.
In the end, the relationship that many predicted would end with a bang did so with a whimper. Elon Musk is formally stepping down from his role in Donald Trump’s administration and returning to his commitments in the private sector.
“I would like to thank Donald Trump for the opportunity to reduce wasteful spending,” he wrote on X. “The DOGE mission will only strengthen over time as it becomes a way of life throughout the government.”
The New York Times reported today that Musk was privately most frustrated by the difficulty of enacting change in Washington in the face of an intransigent bureaucracy, and by the immense political blowback on Tesla and his other firms.
At the heart of the (seemingly amicable) political divorce is Trump's legislative centrepiece — a “big, beautiful” spending bill combining tax cuts, military spending and immigration enforcement in a splurge that outstrips whatever savings might have been found by Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency.
