Nik Popli
Elon Musk came to Washington with a chainsaw in hand, promising to slash trillions in government waste as a member of the Trump Administration. Three months later, he’s leaving behind a complicated legacy that includes unmet expectations and uneasy questions about his leadership.
On Friday, as Musk’s brief stint in government formally came to an end, the billionaire entrepreneur stood beside President Donald Trump in the Oval Office for a final farewell. Wearing a black “DOGE” baseball cap and a T-shirt emblazoned with the word “Dogefather,” Musk said he hoped to continue to be a “friend and adviser to the President” and expressed confidence that the cost-cutting effort he started would eventually find the $1 trillion in savings he had promised.
“The DOGE team will only grow stronger over time,” he said, referring to the Department of Government Efficiency, a network of engineers he led who were tasked with rooting out waste, fraud, and abuse from the federal government.
Musk’s role as a special government employee working for Trump was always intended to be temporary, and he had recently expressed interest in returning his focus to his businesses, as Tesla in particular suffered from plunging sales. But his departure, announced earlier this week, marks a striking turning point for the federal government’s ambitious cost-cutting agency he helped define.
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