A disillusioned Musk, bids farewell, as he distances himself from Trump. Will spend more time on his companies

Ya Libnan

3 days ago

By
Tyler Pager
Maggie Haberman
Theodore Schleifer
Jonathan Swan
and
Ryan Mac
Elon Musk took a swipe at President Trump's signature domestic policy legislation, saying it would add to the national deficit. He complained to administration officials about a lucrative deal that went to a rival company to build an artificial-intelligence data center in the Middle East. And he has yet to make good on a $100 million pledge to Trump's political operation.
Mr. Musk, who once called himself the president's 'first buddy,' is now operating with some distance from Mr. Trump as he says he is ending his government work to
spend more time
on his companies. Mr. Musk remains on good terms with Mr. Trump, according to White House officials. But he has also made it clear that he is disillusioned with Washington and frustrated with the obstacles he encountered as he upended the federal bureaucracy, raising questions about the strength of the alliance between the president and the world's richest man.
Mr. Musk was the biggest known political spender in the 2024 election, and he told Mr. Trump's advisers this year that
he would give $100 million to groups
controlled by the president's team before the 2026 midterms. As of this week, the money hasn't come in yet, according to multiple people familiar with the matter, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe the behind-the-scenes dynamic.
Mr. Musk did not respond to a request for comment. In
a post
on X, his social media site, on Wednesday night, he officially confirmed for the first time that his stint as a government employee was coming to an end and thanked Mr. Trump 'for the opportunity to reduce wasteful spending.'
'The @DOGE mission will only strengthen over time as it becomes a way of life throughout the government,' he added, referring to his Department of Government Efficiency team.
The billionaire's imprint is still firmly felt in official Washington through that effort, an initiative to drastically cut spending that has deployed staff across the government. But Mr. Musk has said in recent days that he spent too much time focused on politics and has lamented the reputational damage he and his companies have suffered because of his work in the Trump administration.
'I think I probably did spend a bit too much time on politics,' Mr. Musk
said
in an interview this week with Ars Technica, a tech news outlet.
He added: 'It was just relative time allocation that probably was a little too high on the government side, and I've reduced that significantly in recent weeks.'
He also took a swipe at Mr. Trump's allies in Congress,
telling
CBS News that he was 'disappointed' by the domestic policy bill that the president championed and the House passed last week.
'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,' he said.
When asked by reporters about Mr. Musk's criticisms on Wednesday, Mr. Trump declined to respond directly. He defended the bill while acknowledging that he did not love every aspect of it, and he lauded Republicans' efforts to move it forward. He did not once utter Mr. Musk's name.
However, Stephen Miller, the White House deputy chief of staff for policy,
shot back
at Mr. Musk on social media without naming him. Mr. Miller asserted that the bill would reduce the deficit — despite multiple independent analyses saying otherwise — and noted that the cuts made by Mr. Musk's team were unrelated to the spending bill.
Ahead of Mr. Trump's trip to the Middle East this month, Mr. Musk objected to a deal in the works between a rival A.I. company and the United Arab Emirates to
build a massive data center
in Abu Dhabi, according to a White House official.
Mr. Musk complained to David Sacks, the president's A.I. adviser, and other White House officials about the Abu Dhabi project involving OpenAI, an organization he founded with Sam Altman, with whom he has since had a falling out, according to the official. He also expressed concerns about fairness more broadly for other A.I. companies, and sought to have his own company, xAI, be included in the deal, though it ultimately was not. The Wall Street Journal
first reported
Mr. Musk's pushback.
The OpenAI deal followed a plan secured between the Trump administration and the United Arab Emirates
to build an A.I. campus in Abu Dhabi.
Mr. Musk joined the president on his trip through the Middle East, but Mr. Trump hardly mentioned his name publicly. And foreign officials in the Gulf seemed more interested in seeking out Mr. Trump's special envoy to the region, Steve Witkoff, than they were in Mr. Musk.
On May 14, as a crowd of Mr. Trump's wealthy supporters milled inside Qatar's Lusail Palace before a dinner with the emir, Mr. Musk waited along with everyone else in the receiving line to shake Mr. Trump's hand.
The billionaire's role on the sidelines is a drastic shift from his dominance early in the new administration.
In February, Mr. Musk leaped onstage at the Conservative Political Action Conference with a chain saw and remarked 'how easy' it was to 'save billions of dollars sometimes in, in an hour.'
'Yeah, like, it's wild,' he said.
Mr. Musk's DOGE team has
repeatedly inflated its cost-saving efforts
, at times posting erroneous claims about ending federal contracts that
they have later deleted.
This week, Mr. Musk
told
The Washington Post that it was an 'uphill battle trying to improve things in D.C.'
The cuts he wanted to enact were far more difficult than he expected and his lack of interest in learning more about the bureaucracy he considered toxic impeded his efforts, particularly on Capitol Hill, according to people familiar with his efforts, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe internal discussions.
For the first 90 days of the administration, some White House aides felt the administration was essentially held captive by Mr. Musk and his willingness to use X to target people he didn't like. Mr. Musk had a direct pipeline to Mr. Trump and encouraged measures that some cabinet officials opposed, like
forcing
federal workers to send a weekly email listing their top five accomplishments or risk termination. (That requirement was
lifted
for civilian employees at the Defense Department this week.)
Mr. Musk kept Mr. Trump enthralled, until some of the headlines about DOGE's work — and complaints from lawmakers and cabinet officials — became hard to tune out. A rupture for the president, according to people with knowledge of his thinking, came when he learned from a
New York Times report
that Mr. Musk was about to receive a sensitive briefing on China at the Pentagon. Mr. Trump, who had repeatedly fended off questions about Mr. Musk's potential conflicts of interest, was displeased, the people said.
Mr. Musk's own
disillusionment
with national politics can be traced back to two recent events, according to people close to him: his frustrations with the president's tariff regime and the roughly $25 million he spent backing a candidate who ended up losing a judicial bid in Wisconsin.
I
When it comes to his efforts to upend the bureaucracy, Mr. Musk insisted last month that it is possible to meet his goal of slashing $1 trillion of federal spending, 'but it's a long road to go, and, you know, it's really difficult.'
'It's sort of, how much pain is, you know, are the cabinet and is Congress willing to take?' he told reporters at the White House. 'Because it can be done, but it requires dealing with a lot of complaints.'
He said it remained to be seen whether there was 'sufficient political will in Congress and elsewhere to actually do that.'
Still, several of Mr. Musk's most prominent deputies appear to be ensconced in their new government roles.
Steve Davis
, a loyal executive who has worked for Mr. Musk across many of his businesses, including at X, remains a regular presence at the General Services Administration, according to two people who have interacted with him recently. Antonio Gracias, the billionaire investor, has transitioned from
leading
the DOGE team at the Social Security Administration to a role combing through federal databases to try to identify instances of foreign nationals voting illegally, according to people familiar with the effort.
Last month, Mr. Musk
told Tesla investors and analysts
that he would cut his time on government matters to 'a day or two per week,' and since then, he has made a concerted effort to show that he is re-engaged at his companies.
'Back to spending 24/7 at work,' Mr. Musk, the Tesla and SpaceX chief executive,
posted on X
on Saturday. 'I must be super focused on X/xAI and Tesla.'
On Tuesday, SpaceX held a
test flight of Starship
, the rocket that Mr. Musk hopes will someday take humans to Mars. The vehicle had a successful launch, but sprang a leak halfway through its journey and eventually exploded. On X Mr. Musk called the launch a 'big improvement,' but postponed a planned talk he was set to give on 'SpaceX's plan to make life multiplanetary.'
He made it clear, however, that he was in attendance at the launch and focused on SpaceX. He reposted interviews with influencers and news organizations as well as a video of himself sitting in a control center while wearing a shirt that said 'Occupy Mars.'
the New York Times