Lefty media worked themselves into a lather over Elon Musk’s imminent departure from the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) — but his tenure was always meant to be temporary.
Musk — DOGE’s lodestar and President Trump’s right-hand man — is in fact expected to step back from the administration at the end of next month, two sources close to the White House tell The Post.
But his last day was a fait accompli from the start of the administration, per federal regulations which mandate special government employees (SGEs) can only remain at their post for 130 consecutive days.
In Musk’s case, that would peg his last day at the DOGE helm as May 30, precisely 130 days since Trump’s inauguration.
But none of this — nor repeated assertions to the contrary going back months — stopped Politico and left-wing pundits from heralding the Tesla and SpaceX CEO stepping down from DOGE as evidence of a facturing of the Trump-Musk alliance.
“The news represents a shift in the Trump-Musk relationship from a month ago, when White House officials & allies were predicting Musk was ‘here to stay’ and that Trump would find a way to blow past the 130-day time limit,” Politico capitol bureau chief Rachel Bade breathlessly reported on X Wednesday morning, labeling her stating of the obvious as a “SCOOP.”
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt joined the dogpile of more than 1,200 commenters ridiculing Bade’s post.
“This ‘scoop’ is garbage,” Leavitt responded to Blade’s thread before plainly restating the facts.
“Elon Musk and President Trump have both *publicly* stated that Elon will depart from public service as a special government employee when his incredible work at DOGE is complete.”
The plan has always been to let Musk return to civilian life after his SGE status expires — and Trump himself recently alluded to the X boss’s departure coming sooner rather than later.
“At some point, he’s going to be going back … I’ll keep him as long as I can keep him, he’s a very talented guy,” the president told reporters in the Oval Office on Monday.
“I love very smart people, and he’s very smart, and he’s done a good job … I like high IQ people. At some point, Elon’s going to want to go back to his company.”
Musk himself acknowledged the 130-day limit in an interview with Fox News chief political anchor Bret Baier last week, saying, “I think we will have accomplished most of the work required to reduce the deficit by $1 trillion within that time frame.”
In addition, Musk told investors in early February that he expected to only be in the Trump White House for about four months, Post columnist Charles Gasparino reported at the time.
Two months earlier, even before Trump took office, Musk had declared the “final step of DOGE is to delete itself.”
Musk has made waves in his short time with the Trump administration, leading DOGE in making major cuts at the US Agency for International Development and the Department of Education, as well as the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and the Social Security Administration.
The massive layoffs sparked violent protests targeting Tesla vehicles — which prompted the Trump administration to crack down on vandals and call the attacks “domestic terrorism.”
“I think a great wrong is being done to the people of Tesla and to our customers,” Musk told Baier. “I mean, Tesla’s a peaceful company that has made great cars, great products — that’s all it’s done.”
Musk also made headlines earlier in the administration by directing all federal employees to send a progress report with five bullet points detailing their accomplishments in the previous week, but Trump later said DOGE would be serving more as “tech support” than human resources after yet another backlash.
The White House has also said Musk was using his tech knowledge to determine how Atlantic magazine editor-in-chief Jeffrey Goldberg was added to a confidential Trump administration Signal group chat on carrying out strikes against the Houthis in Yemen March 15.
