Trump waves Elon Musk and says he will continue to follow his advice

Elon Musk takes a step back from his political part -time job as the head of the Department for Public Efficiency, but will remain ‘informal adviser’ and ‘friend’ of Donald Trump. That is what the Tech millionaire said on Friday during a provisional last audience performance with the President in the White House.

With their joint press conference in the Oval Office, both closed a remarkable period in American politics. After donating more than 290 million dollars last year to the Campagnekas of Trump and his Republicans, Musk got a vague defined but influential role within the new government at the beginning of this year. As the head of the pseudo-ministerie for government efficiency (DOGE) he devised and guided), he was formally the task of finding significant savings, to slim the federal civil service and to modernize IT systems.

In practice, Musk and his Doge employees seized their mandate to physically penetrate ministries, to break in with IT systems, dismiss thousands of civil servants and harass many others towards a voluntary departure. Agencies and government services were lifted, and especially progressive policy programs removed. This demolition work unleashed an avalanche of lawsuits, making it the question of how sustainable the interventions will turn out in the long term.

Dressed in a black jacket over a black T-shirt-with in white letters on it The Dogefather -And with his well-known black Maga-Petje, Musk expressed Friday the expectation that Doge will eventually find a thousand billion dollars in savings on the American budget. Last month, Doge turned out to be far away from this austerity goal. At that time, without sound evidence, Musk stated that his pseudo-ministerie found $ 160 billion in cuts.

Trump said on Friday that in addition to all the dismissals, at least 75,000 officials left on their own initiative. As other alleged successes of Doge, the president listed a long list of deleted government programs on diversity, transgender people and international development aid. Trump did not give an exact amount that would have been saved, but now called this « a considerable figure -and this can still double or triple in the coming period ».

According to his founding decree, Doge will continue to operate until July 2026. It has many employees who were previously active within Musks tech companies. Trump called them on Friday « geniuses » who « almost all will stay. » With their ‘engineering mentality’ they would already have a ‘whole new one mindset in all layers of the government « . He emphasized that » doge does not disappear « and to expect » that Elon will return every now and then. It is his child anyway. « 

Back to his companies

At the end of this month, Musks expired legal maximum period of 130 days, including the government may hire external experts as ‘extraordinary government official’. If the entrepreneur would have wanted to stay on for longer, he would have had to make business interests at a distance and was subject to stricter transparency rules.

Musk had his part -time job in Washington more and more blasted in recent weeks. He was needed at various of his companies, he said at the beginning of May after unrest had broken out among investors in Tesla. The car brand suffered strong reputation damage inside and outside the US due to its political adventure, with plummeting sales and a falling stock price as a result.

Musk was also disappointed with the lack of budget discipline among Republicans, which destroyed the formal purpose of DOGE-ENVIJNMENTMISING. Last week he said that he would no longer give money to political campaigns.

Trump and his party did not want to completely break the business relationship with Musk

Republicans, in turn, saw Musk increasing as a political risk. Despite (or thanks to) its open interference, they lost the race for an important court seat in Wisconsin. The Democratic opposition discovered an ideal head of Jut in him. The popularity of Musk fell in polls and his private life came under a magnifying glass even more than before.

Published on Friday morning The New York Times yet A long research article The fact that circulating stories about Musk’s intensive drug use had been struggling for many longer, as well as his tumultuous interaction with the various women whose at least fourteen children were already conceived. A salient new detail that the newspaper was killed from Musks Entourage is that he used so much ketamine in the last election year that caused him this bladder problems (a known complaint with excessive use of this drug).

Musk did not want to respond to this story on Friday and questioned the reliability of the newspaper.

No spectacular breakage

The so -called bromance With Trump, a logical end came to a logical end: in a more spectacular break, neither of them had clear importance. During his months in the capital, Musk has been able to effectively represent his business interests, with appointments of loyalists on ministries and with regulators.

Trump and his party did not want to completely break the relationship. Despite Musks announced as a donor, they will hope that he will donate again in the next election cycles. Moreover, he remains the owner of X, the former Twitter, who since Musks take over in 2022 has grown into an important mouthpiece within the American right.

Musk also has the dream that he can bring humanity to Mars, where he may need NASA space duration. Asked if it is more difficult to colonize the red planet or to streamline the US government, he said laughing on Friday: « That is hard to say. But I think that colonizing Mars is just a bit more difficult. »

To share

Mail the editors