Trump Announces Friday Will Be Musk’s ‘Last Day, But Not Really’
AP Photo/Alex Brandon
President Donald Trump said Elon Musk will exit the government on Friday, “but not really, because he will, always be with us, helping all the way.”
Since Trump named him the head of the “Department of Government Efficiency,” Musk and his team upended various federal agencies via mass layoffs of tens of thousands of employees. The billionaire Tesla CEO pledged to find $2 trillion in “waste, fraud, and abuse,” but as of Thursday, the DOGE website lists just $175 billion, and even this figure has been arrived at using dubious math. Arguably, the most controversial DOGE moves were its shuttering of USAID and the killing of medical research grants at the National Institutes of Health.
As a designated special government employee, Musk can only formally work for the government for 130 days in a 365-day period. But on Thursday, Trump said on his Truth Social platform that Musk is “not really” leaving:
I am having a Press Conference tomorrow at 1:30 P.M. EST, with Elon Musk, at the Oval Office. This will be his last day, but not really, because he will, always, be with us, helping all the way. Elon is terrific! See you tomorrow at the White House.
Musk was a ubiquitous presence at the White House and Mar-a-Lago during the first two months or so of Trump’s term, though he has been less visible recently. This week, he publicly came out against Trump’s massive spending bill and said he was “disappointed” because it will increase the budget deficit, as the Congressional Budget Office has assessed.
Musk’s presence gradually wore on several administration officials, including Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, who reportedly told Musk, “Fuck you!” during a West Wing shouting match.
Hours before Trump’s post about Musk “not really” leaving, Fox News’s Brian Kilmeade predicted just that.
“He’ll be back,” Kilmeade said on Fox & Friends. “I think he is going to take a little while off and he will be back in some way, shape, or form.”
