Written By Lexx Thornton
Musk departed as a “special government employee” a day after he expressed disappointment over a spending package Trump has been rallying Republicans to support. Musk’s monthslong stint as a special government employee tasked with slashing federal spending formally ended Wednesday evening. He has served the designated 130 days out of 365 in the year as a special government employee.
Musk, the CEO of Tesla and SpaceX, announced his departure Wednesday on X, after he said he was “disappointed” by a domestic package Trump rallied House Republicans to get behind. Musk stated, “CBS Sunday Morning” in an interview set to air Sunday, “I was, like, 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.”
Musk, who in January walked back a vision of cutting upward of $2 trillion with his department, has argued that bureaucracy has throttled his efforts to reduce government spending.
“The federal bureaucracy situation is much worse than I realized,” he told The Washington Post this week. “I thought there were problems, but it sure is an uphill battle trying to improve things in D.C., to say the least.”
House Republicans voted last week to approve the legislation that would extend Trump’s tax cuts from his first term, which is estimated to add $2.3 trillion to the federal deficit over 10 years and cancel health coverage for roughly 8.6 million people, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office.
