Elon Musk Whines That White House Made DOGE a ‘Whipping Boy for Everything’

(AP Photo/Alex Brandon, File)

Elon Musk hit out at President Donald Trump’s White House for the second time in a week, accusing the administration of making his government-slashing Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) its “whipping boy.”

Speaking from the Starbase SpaceX facility in Texas, Musk offered a sharp critique of the administration he once helped bankroll, claiming DOGE was being scapegoated for problems it had “nothing to do with.”

“DOGE is just becoming the whipping boy for everything,” Musk told The Washington Post. “So, like, something bad would happen anywhere, and we would get blamed for it even if we had nothing to do with it.”

The comments mark a notable shift in tone from the billionaire once one of Trump’s closest advisers, but following a wave of backlash over mass federal layoffs – more than 280,000 roles slashed by DOGE – and a bruising 2025 Q1 for Tesla, Musk came out to redirect the spotlight.

“People were burning Teslas,” Musk said. “Why would you do that? That’s really uncool.”

Musk’s criticism comes just weeks after Trump’s Chief of Staff Susie Wiles confirmed the tech mogul had vacated his West Wing post, signaling a quiet retreat from the inner circle. Now, Musk says his next move within DOGE will be far less incendiary: modernizing the federal government’s broken computer systems.

“There’s, like, so many situations where the computers are so broken,” he said. “And this is just literally a thing that was brought to my attention.”

On Tuesday, CBS teased an interview with Musk for CBS Sunday Morning, in which he told correspondent David Pogue he was “disappointed” by Trump’s “Big, Beautiful Bill,” which narrowly passed the House last week.

Musk said: “You know, I was like, disappointed to see the massive spending bill, frankly, which increases the budget deficit, not decrease it and undermines the work the DOGE team is doing.”

He added: “I think a bill can be big or it can be beautiful. But I don’t know if it can be both. My personal opinion.”