Elon Musk’s fortune may recover. Tesla might start selling cars again. But he’s never going to live down DOGE.
Musk to shift focus from DOGE to Tesla after profits plunge
Elon Musk told investors he will refocus on Tesla and begin scaling back his involvement with the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) in May.
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Elon Musk is the world’s richest man, so it’s fair to expect him to know a thing or two about money and math.
But now that Musk is wrapping up his time as President Donald Trump‘s “special government employee” in charge of fracturing the federal government with chaos, confusion and concern, it’s also fair to ask a few questions.
Here’s one: Does Musk know that $160 billion is just 8% of $2 trillion?
Because, while campaigning for Trump last fall, Musk bragged that he could easily find “at least $2 trillion” in savings when he took over as the kinda-sorta leader of the new Department of Government Efficiency.
Now headed for the exit, Musk says DOGE might one day hit $1 trillion in savings but has found just $160 billion for now. Sure, $160 billion is a lot of money. But, as The New York Times notes, Musk and DOGE only published on the department’s website receipts for $58 billion in savings.
That’s just shy of 3% of the $2 trillion he promised us last year and just 36% of what he now claims to have saved this year. It’s nowhere near the government cleanup Republicans cheered.
And the nonpartisan Partnership for Public Service, a nonprofit that studies the federal government, recently calculated that DOGE’s cuts will actually cost the federal government about $135 billion this year, when you add up costs to defend multiple lawsuits and the potential impacts of firing so many Internal Revenue Service staffers.
Seriously, would you buy a car from Musk, knowing how shady he is with facts and figures?
Musk walks away from DOGE, the joke he helped create
Musk is departing – mostly – from the White House to refocus his attention on his electric car company, Tesla, which saw profits plummet by an astounding 71% in the first quarter of 2025.
Not much has changed at Tesla while Musk was away. A “Cybertruck” still looks like a practical joke where someone slapped fat, black rims on a dumpster and rolled it down the road.
The precipitous drop in Tesla’s profits is tied directly to the damage Musk has done to his own personal brand. He made himself the face of the car company. Then he made people despise that face through his antics at DOGE.
A Public Religion Research Institute survey of 5,025 American adults, conducted in February and March and released in late April, found that 58% viewed Musk unfavorably, and that 53% said his work at DOGE was reckless and did more harm than good.
Musk, in what amounted to an April 30 exit interview at the White House with several news outlets, including USA Today, seemed eager to cast DOGE as some sort of joke, as if we’re all living in a techno-simulation he crafted. That’s some one-two punch: unscrupulous at math and unserious about the impact.
Musk wants efficiency for his businesses, not for Americans
That joke is on us for now, and well into the future. The unnecessary upheaval Trump empowered Musk to force on how we govern our nation will likely be felt for years, if not a decade or more.
But the joke is on Musk, too. His fortune may recover. His cars might start selling again. But he’s never going to live down DOGE. The blame is his now, tomorrow, forever.
Democrats, looking for a path back from the wilderness of the minority, know this. Musk spent more than $290 million in 2024 to help reelect Trump, who is now slumping in approval ratings with no sign of a rebound.
You can expect the Democratic Party to handcuff Musk to Trump in midterm election advertising in 2026.
So why did Musk take on this task? Well, I’m betting he didn’t become the world’s richest man by doing what was best for others.
The Democrats in the minority on the U.S. Senate’s Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations on April 27 issued a 44-page memo that suggested Musk was taking a calculated risk with DOGE because the cuts eliminate legal liability he could avoid by dismantling parts of the government that oversee his many businesses.
Add it all up, and that could come to more than $2 billion in savings for Musk.
There it is. There’s the efficiency. But it’s not efficient for the American taxpayer. It’s for Musk.
Musk is somehow the world’s richest man and the victim
The thing about permanent subcommittees is they don’t go away. Sure, Trump holds the White House and Republicans, who still, for now, live in fear of angering the president, control the House and Senate. But the midterm elections are just 18 months away.
A Congress controlled by Democrats would undoubtedly have a lot of questions for Musk starting in January 2027.
Musk will be busy for a while cleaning up the mess he made for himself. And he’s quite sensitive about it.
The Wall Street Journal on May 1 reported that Tesla last month started talking to executive search firms about finding a replacement for Musk, since his reputation was tarnishing the brand. Tesla, in a statement after the story was published, denied it and said the company’s board is still “highly confident” in Musk’s ability.
Musk, of course, played the victim here, complaining on X, the social media site he bought and then transformed into a hateful swill of disinformation, that the story showed “an EXTREMELY BAD BREACH OF ETHICS.”
No surprise there. This is what guys like Trump and Musk always do when their actions draw the kind of attention they don’t enjoy. They declare victory while playing the victim. Everything that looks troubling or shady or both is always somebody else’s fault.
That will get you as far as the American people will allow you to go. For now, it looks like Musk and Trump are running out of road to blame others while celebrating themselves.
Follow USA TODAY columnist Chris Brennan on X, formerly known as Twitter: @ByChrisBrennan. Sign up for his weekly newsletter, Translating Politics, here.