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Elon Musk was “really not leaving” the US government, Donald Trump claimed at an Oval Office press briefing that had been billed as a send-off for the billionaire from his role heading the administration’s cost-cutting initiative.
Trump told the news conference on Friday that Musk, who helped bankroll his presidential campaign last year, was “going to be back and forth” between his businesses and Washington.
The president credited the Tesla boss — who was sporting a black eye during his visit to Washington — with running the “most sweeping and consequential government reform programme in generations” at the so-called Department of Government Efficiency (Doge).
Musk’s time as the head of Doge came to a premature close this week after he bristled at central parts of the Trump administration’s policy agenda.
The 53-year-old, who was originally slated to lead the department until next summer, was also forced to focus on his companies after they suffered what he called “blowback” over his ties to the Trump administration.
Tesla has borne the brunt of the backlash, with the electric-car maker’s sales slumping in the previous reported quarter, particularly in Europe, where the administration is deeply unpopular.
Speaking alongside the president on Friday, Musk defended his record at Doge, which rampaged through government agencies, gutting the US Agency for International Development and cancelling contracts deemed to be linked to diversity initiatives or so-called woke causes.
“This is not the end of Doge but really the beginning,” he said, adding the initiative was now “permeating throughout government”, with members of his team embedded in agencies.
Musk also defended Doge’s purported savings, despite it only managing to cut a fraction of the $2tn in waste and fraud he had pledged to find. A Financial Times investigation concluded that the accounting of $175bn in savings so far identified by the organisation was riddled with duplicates and inflated estimates.
“I’m confident that over time we will see $1tn in savings,” Musk said on Friday, adding that Doge was “on track to do so . . . by the middle of next year”.
He said the department faced opposition for actions it did not even take, claiming: “We became the Doge bogey man, any cut anywhere would be ascribed to Doge.”
He also refused to answer questions about a New York Times report alleging he had used illegal drugs while campaigning for Trump last year.
Trump predicted that the savings made by Doge would get “very much more substantial with time” and the “numbers could double and triple”.
During his four-month tenure, Musk clashed with cabinet secretaries — including Scott Bessent at the Treasury — and even criticised two of the administration’s signature policies.
He publicly opposed the White House’s trade policy and claimed the president’s blockbuster tax bill “undermines” the work done by his Doge team.
But while Trump’s deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller this week obliquely rebuked Musk over his comments on the tax bill, the president has refrained from hitting back at his richest supporter, who backed him with more than $250mn last year.
The president nonetheless touted his tariffs in front of the billionaire at the Oval Office on Friday, saying: “The tariffs are so important . . . without the tariffs our nation would be in peril”.
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