Why has Elon Musk left Doge and what now for billionaire?

31 May 2025, 10:26 | Updated: 31 May 2025, 10:28

Elon Musk has left his post at the head of Donald Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency this week.

In a dramatic and unexpected turn of events, the tech billionaire has stepped back from the government but has pledged that the work of the state cost cutting venture will continue.

The president has given his best wishes to his former “first buddy” but not before the Tesla and SpaceX boss criticised Mr Trump over his spending priorities.

Here is how the fall out came about and what Mr Musk will go on to do next.

What happened between Elon Musk and Donald Trump?

Elon Musk criticising Donald Trump and leaving his post this week is a far cry from the budding bromance between the South African-born billionaire and US president.

While on the election trail, the tech tycoon enthusiastically jumped for joy at a Trump rally and spoke at several events in support of the president-in-waiting.

After attending the inauguration of the now 47th president (and performing a controversial Nazi-esque salute) Mr Musk got into work in charge of the newly created Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).

Since then, Mr Musk has been at the helm as sweeping cuts have been made to government services while he has spoken alongside the president in the Oval Office (with his son for company) and referred to himself as “first buddy” to Mr Trump.

There had been the first hints of discontent between the parties in February, amid the mass layoffs being instrumented by DOGE. Mr Trump is said to have told his cabinet: "They have a lot of respect for Elon and that he's doing this, and some disagree a little bit.”

Things soured further in the past week on the back of Mr Trump’s spending bill, which added up to $3.8 trillion and left Mr Musk feeling that the president was not holding up his end of the bargain by being too loose with the purse strings.

The “big beautiful bill” was announced this week and proposes multi-trillion-dollar tax breaks and a boost to defence spending. It led to Mr Musk criticising the president for the first time.

Elon Musk says Trump's "big, beautiful bill" undermines work of DOGE team

“It undermines the work that the DOGE team is doing,” Mr Musk told CBS. "I think a bill can be big or it could be beautiful. But I don't know if it could be both.

“I was disappointed to see the massive spending bill, frankly, which increases the budget deficit, not just decreases it.”

He added in an interview with the Washington Post: “DOGE is just becoming the whipping boy for everything. Something bad would happen anywhere, and we would get blamed for it even if we had nothing to do with it.”

The White House had denied that Mr Musk was leaving but on Thursday the billionaire appeared to confirm this in a tweet.

But while he is departing, it seems the work of his former department is set to continue under Mr Trump’s vision of shrinking the state and associated bureaucracy.

Mr Musk tweeted: "The @DOGE mission will only strengthen over time as it becomes a way of life throughout the government.

"As my scheduled time as a Special Government Employee comes to an end, I would like to thank President @realDonaldTrump for the opportunity to reduce wasteful spending,"

The White House tweeted on behalf of Mr Trump: “This will be his last day, but not really, because he will, always, be with us, helping all the way. Elon is terrific! See you tomorrow at the White House.”

What will Elon Musk do now?

Mr Musk is still at the helm at Twitter, the social media site he bought and renamed X, as well as electric car manufacturer Tesla and his exploration entity SpaceX which also provides Starlink internet.

Tesla has seen a fall in sales and share prices since Mr Musk’s politicisation while X has also lost users.

The US establishment has moved to say that he is not entirely out of the picture, however.

“I think there's also an effort by the media to sort of say the Elon era is over, and I think that's actually totally wrong,” vice president JD Vance said on Newsmax.

“Now, he obviously has a day job and he's gotta go back to his day job to run his companies.”

There could also be collaboration with SpaceX having $22 billion in US government contracts, according to the BBC, with Mr Musk having been criticised for promoting his own interests while in the DOGE role.

Who is Elon Musk?

Answering some of the questions posed by the internet.

• How old is Elon Musk? 53 (born June 28, 1971)
• What are Elon Musk’s businesses? Musk is the leader of Tesla, SpaceX and Twitter, which he has renamed as X
• How many children does Elon Musk have? Musk has had 14 children with four women: Shivon Zilis, Justine Wilson, Grimes, and Ashley St Clair. His children are: Nevada, Vivian, Griffin, Kai, Saxon, Damian, X Æ A-12, Exa, Strider, Azure, Techno, Arcadia, Seldon Lycurgus and Romulus. Nevada sadly died at 10 weeks old
• How did Elon Musk get rich so quick? Musk is from a wealthy South African family but made his name in the 1990s with various tech start ups before founding SpaceX and becoming an early investor in Tesla, taking it over fully in the mid to late 2000s. The company has become a leader in the production of electric vehicles
• What is Elon Musk’s ‘five minute rule’? One productivity technique that Musk swears by is doing a task straight away if it takes five minutes or less. Musk breaks down his day into five minute slots and fills these with very specific tasks
• Has Elon Musk been diagnosed with anything? In 2021, Musk said he had Asperger's syndrome - a form of autism. The term is no longer used to distinguish from autism but has been previously given as a diagnosis to mark out someone who has greater social skills or higher performance than others on the spectrum
• Does Elon Musk have British citizenship? No, he is believed to have a Canadian, British and South African passport - although he could certainly afford to pay up should he wish to obtain UK citizenship!