Trump’s chief of staff has revealed Elon Musk is no longer working at the White House after spending the first 100 Days by the president’s side.
The world’s richest man is quietly stepping away from his official role with the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) – the controversial task force slashing spending across the federal government.
After months of dominating the West Wing, attending Cabinet meetings, riding shotgun on Air Force One, and even bringing his toddler son ‘X’ into high-level budget briefings, Musk is now notably absent from the White House campus.
‘Instead of meeting with him in person, I’m talking to him on the phone, but it’s the same net effect,’ White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles told The New York Post.
‘He’s not out of it altogether. He’s just not physically present as much as he was.’
But Wiles insists Musk’s team stationed in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building will carry on his vision. ‘He hasn’t been here physically, but it really doesn’t matter much,’ she said.
‘The people that are doing this work are here doing good things and paying attention to the details. He’ll be stepping back a little, but he’s certainly not abandoning it. And his people are definitely not.’
His absence may signal the beginning of the end of the most disruptive experiments in modern US governance.
For the first several months of Trump’s second term, Elon Musk was everywhere – briefing Trump personally, gutting federal departments, and boldly promising to slash the federal deficit by $1 trillion, a figure he vowed to halve by the end of the fiscal year.
From the moment Trump stunned Washington by appointing Musk as an unpaid special government employee and unofficial ‘Efficiency Czar,’ the billionaire’s presence has sparked admiration and outrage in equal measure.
Democrats accused Musk of launching a Silicon Valley coup on American democracy while Republicans hailed him as the one man willing to treat the federal bureaucracy like a malfunctioning machine needing a complete rewiring.
Under the DOGE initiative, Musk set out to dismantle what he and Trump called the ‘Deep State of Waste.’
The drive has seen the gutting and attempted dismantling of multiple agencies and the firings of over 200,000 federal workers. It has faced legal challenges and lawsuits.
His targets were aggressive and symbolic and included the 10,000-employee US Agency for International Development (USAID) which he gutted and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) which has been slated for closure.
By March, Musk’s war on Washington had reached such a fever pitch that vandals began targeting Tesla cars and holding demonstrations outside of showrooms , accusing the mogul of turning federal cuts into a tech-sector feeding frenzy.
In response, Trump staged a political spectacle in the White House grounds and purchased a Tesla on camera calling the vandals ‘domestic terrorists’ and ordering the DOJ to respond with force.
But last week, Musk confirmed that he would be pivoting away from the White House.
Musk’s 130-day mandate as a special government employee was set to expire at the end of May. He said he will continue to help Trump overhaul the government, but not full-time.
‘Starting next month, I will be allocating far more of my time to Tesla,’ he said during a Tesla earnings call. ‘The major work of establishing [DOGE] has been completed.’
But he didn’t entirely shut the door on future government work. ‘I would still be interested in continuing to spend a day or two a week on government matters, as long as it is useful,’ he added.
Despite Musk’s bold promises to reduce the deficit and shutter bloated agencies, the administration has yet to release an official tally of savings.
Independent watchdogs say transparency has been limited.
Critics have portrayed the spending cuts as reckless and dangerous, particularly in emergency and humanitarian assistance abroad, while Trump and Musk say they are needed to fight waste and fraud.
His reduced role leaves DOGE’s future in doubt, but governance experts said they believe the cost-cutting will continue.
A DOGE website that gives regular updates on what it claims it has saved U.S. taxpayers – $160 billion to date – has been riddled with errors and corrections.