Elon Musk says he's getting back to business at X and Tesla: 'I must be super focused'
Elon Musk had been the face of President Donald Trump 's efforts to reduce the size of government.
More recently, however, the billionaire has said he intends to return his focus to the companies that helped make him the world's richest man.
"Back to spending 24/7 at work and sleeping in conference/server/factory rooms," Musk said in a post on his social media platform, X, on Saturday. The site had just grappled with widespread outages.
"I must be super focused on 𝕏/xAI and Tesla (plus Starship launch next week), as we have critical technologies rolling out."
The comment followed a similar statement Musk made last month during a Tesla earnings call.
"I think I'll continue to spend a day or two per week on government matters for as long as the president would like me to do so, and for as long as it is useful, but starting next month, I'll be allocating far more of my time to Tesla, now that the major work of establishing the Department of Government Efficiency is done," he said at the time.
Musk's foray into government has been marked by major disruptions in the federal workforce, leaving many workers on edge about their futures. Musk and the Trump administration also targeted entire agencies, like the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and the US Agency for International Development.
Musk has been a near-omnipresent part of Trump's White House since January and has become a polarizing figure among the general public as a result.
The tech titan's super PAC, for example, funneled millions of dollars in an unsuccessful effort to help elect the GOP-aligned candidate in a critical Wisconsin Supreme Court race. Many expect his political activism to carry over to the 2026 midterms.
In a virtual appearance at the Qatar Economic Forum on Tuesday, however, Musk said he'd contribute "a lot less" in political donations moving forward, but didn't specify the reasoning behind the decision.
"Well, if I see a reason to do political spending in the future, I will do it," Musk said at the time. "I do not currently see a reason."
Musk's government work led to a backlash against Tesla, throttling share prices. Tesla's stock bounced back immediately after Musk said in the earnings call that he would step back from his work at the White House DOGE Office.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
22 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Trump aides want Texas to redraw its congressional maps to boost the GOP. What would that mean?
This coverage is made possible through Votebeat, a nonpartisan news organization covering local election administration and voting access. Sign up for Votebeat Texas' free newsletters here. Republicans representing Texas in Congress are considering this week whether to push their state Legislature to take the unusual step of redrawing district lines to shore up the GOP's advantage in the U.S. House. But the contours of the plan, including whether Gov. Greg Abbott would call a special session of the Legislature to redraw the maps, remain largely uncertain. The idea is being driven by President Donald Trump's political advisers, who want to draw up new maps that would give Republicans a better chance to flip seats currently held by Democrats, according to two GOP congressional aides familiar with the matter. That proposal, which would involve shifting GOP voters from safely red districts into neighboring blue ones, is aimed at safeguarding Republicans' thin majority in Congress, where they control the lower chamber, 220-212. The redistricting proposal, and the Trump team's role in pushing it, was first reported by The New York Times Monday. Without a Republican majority in Congress, Trump's legislative agenda would likely stall, and the president could face investigations from newly empowered Democratic committee chairs intent on scrutinizing the White House. Here's what we know about the plan so far: On Capitol Hill, members of the Texas GOP delegation huddled Monday night to discuss the prospect of reshaping their districts. Most of the 25-member group expressed reluctance about the idea, citing concerns about jeopardizing their districts in next year's midterms if the new maps overextended the GOP's advantage, according to the two GOP aides, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the private deliberations. Rep. Jodey Arrington, R-Lubbock, was skeptical of the idea. 'We just recently worked on the new maps,' Arrington told The Texas Tribune. To reopen the process, he said, 'there'd have to be a significant benefit to our state.' The delegation has yet to be presented with mockups of new maps, two aides said. Each state's political maps must be redrawn once a decade, after each round of the U.S. census, to account for population growth and ensure every congressional and legislative district has roughly the same number of people. Texas lawmakers last overhauled their district lines in 2021. There's no federal law that prohibits states from redrawing district maps midcycle, said Justin Levitt, an election law professor at Loyola Marymount University and a former deputy assistant attorney general in the Department of Justice's civil rights division. Laws around the timing to redraw congressional and state district maps vary by state. In Texas, the state constitution doesn't specify timing, so the redrawing of maps is left to the discretion of the governor and the Legislature. Lawmakers gaveled out of their 140-day regular session last week, meaning they would need to be called back for a special session to change the state's political maps. Abbott has the sole authority to order overtime sessions and decide what lawmakers are allowed to consider. A trial is underway in El Paso in a long-running challenge to the state legislative and congressional district maps Texas drew after the 2020 U.S. Census. If Texas redraws its congressional maps, state officials would then ask the court to toss the claims challenging those districts 'that no longer exist,' Levitt said. The portion of the case over the state legislative district maps would continue. If the judge agrees, then both parties would have to file new legal claims for the updated maps. It isn't clear how much maps could change, but voters could find themselves in new districts, and Levitt said redrawing the lines in the middle of the redistricting cycle is a bad idea. 'If the people of Texas think that their representatives have done a bad job, then when the [district] lines change, they're not voting on those representatives anymore,' Levitt said. 'New people are voting on those representatives.' The National Democratic Redistricting Committee, Democrats' national arm for contesting state GOP mapmaking, said the proposal to expand Republicans' stronghold in Texas was 'yet another example of Trump trying to suppress votes in order to hold onto power.' 'Texas's congressional map is already being sued for violating the Voting Rights Act because it diminishes the voting power of the state's fast-growing Latino population,' John Bisognano, president of the NDRC said. 'To draw an even more extreme gerrymander would only assure that the barrage of legal challenges against Texas will continue.' When Republicans in charge of the Legislature redrew the district lines after the 2020 census, they focused on reinforcing their political support in districts already controlled by the GOP. This redistricting proposal would likely take a different approach. As things stand, Republicans hold 25 of the state's 38 congressional seats. Democrats hold 12 seats and are expected to regain control of Texas' one vacant seat in a special election this fall. Most of Texas' GOP-controlled districts lean heavily Republican: In last year's election, 24 of those 25 seats were carried by a Republican victor who received at least 60% of the vote or ran unopposed. The exception was U.S. Rep. Monica De La Cruz, R-Edinburg, who captured 57% of the vote and won by a comfortable 14-point margin. With little competition to speak of, The Times reported, Trump's political advisers believe at least some of those districts could bear the loss of GOP voters who would be reshuffled into neighboring, Democratic-held districts — giving Republican hopefuls a better chance to flip those seats from blue to red. The party in control of the White House frequently loses seats during midterm cycles, and Trump's team is likely looking to offset potential GOP losses in other states and improve the odds of holding on to a narrow House majority. Incumbent Republicans, though, don't love the idea of sacrificing a comfortable race in a safe district for the possibility of picking up a few seats, according to GOP aides. In 2003, after Texas Republicans initially left it up to the courts to draw new lines following the 2000 census, then-U.S. House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, a Sugar Land Republican, embarked instead on a bold course of action to consolidate GOP power in the state. He, along with his Republican allies, redrew the lines as the opening salvo to a multistate redistricting plan aimed at accumulating power for his party in states across the country. Enraged by the power play, Democrats fled the state, depriving the Texas House of the quorum it needed to function. The rebels eventually relented under threat of arrest, a rare power in the Texas Constitution used to compel absent members back to return to Austin when the Legislature is in session. The lines were then redrawn, cementing the GOP majority the delegation has enjoyed in Washington for the past two decades. However, what's at play this time is different than in the early 2000s, when Republicans had a newfound majority in the Legislature and had a number of vulnerable Democratic incumbents they could pick off. Now, Republicans have been entrenched in the majority for decades and will have to answer the question of whether there's really more to gain, said Kareem Crayton, the vice president of the Brennan Center for Justice's Washington office. 'That's the tradeoff. You can do that too much so that you actually make them so competitive that the other side wins,' Crayton said. 'That's always a danger.' Texas Republicans are planning to reconvene Thursday to continue discussing the plan, according to Rep. Beth Van Duyne, R-Irving, and Rep. Wesley Hunt, R-Houston, who said they will attend the meeting. Members of Trump's political team are also expected to attend, according to Hunt and two GOP congressional aides familiar with the matter. Natalia Contreras is a reporter for Votebeat in partnership with the Texas Tribune. She's based in Corpus Christi. Contact Natalia at ncontreras@ Disclosure: New York Times has been a financial supporter of The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization that is funded in part by donations from members, foundations and corporate sponsors. Financial supporters play no role in the Tribune's journalism. Find a complete list of them here. Big news: 20 more speakers join the TribFest lineup! New additions include Margaret Spellings, former U.S. secretary of education and CEO of the Bipartisan Policy Center; Michael Curry, former presiding bishop and primate of The Episcopal Church; Beto O'Rourke, former U.S. Representative, D-El Paso; Joe Lonsdale, entrepreneur, founder and managing partner at 8VC; and Katie Phang, journalist and trial lawyer. Get tickets. TribFest 2025 is presented by JPMorganChase.
Washington Post
24 minutes ago
- Washington Post
Permitless concealed carry in North Carolina faces uphill battle after some GOP pushback
RALEIGH, N.C. — A bill to let adults carry concealed handguns without a permit cleared the North Carolina legislature on Wednesday, however the path to joining the majority of U.S. states with similar laws remains uncertain. The GOP-backed legislation faces a likely veto from Democratic Gov. Josh Stein, as well as pushback from a handful of Republicans who voted against the legislation in the state House. House Speaker Destin Hall acknowledged those concerns after Wednesday's vote.
Yahoo
24 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Meta Platforms (META) Bets Big on AGI With $10 Billion Push and New AI Dream Team
Meta Platforms, Inc. (NASDAQ:) is one of the 10 AI Stocks on Wall Street's Radar. On June 10, Bloomberg News reported that the company's CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, is setting up a team of experts to achieve what is known as 'artificial general intelligence' (AGI), or machines that can match or surpass human capabilities. Citing sources, the report has revealed that the new AI team is being set up along with a reported investment of over $10 billion in Scale AI. It further reported how Scale AI founder Alexandr Wang is expected to join the group after a deal is done. Reportedly, Zuckerberg is planning to personally recruit around 50 people, including a new head of AI research for the AGI team. The decision is being made after looking at the performance and reception of Meta's latest large language model, Llama 4, the report stated. While we acknowledge the potential of META as an investment, we believe certain AI stocks offer greater upside potential and carry less downside risk. If you're looking for an extremely undervalued AI stock that also stands to benefit significantly from Trump-era tariffs and the onshoring trend, see our free report on the best short-term AI stock. READ NEXT: and Disclosure: None.
