Elon Musk‘s tenure in the Trump administration began like an incendiary rocket launch but concluded Thursday with a relatively boilerplate parting words from the White House.
Karoline Leavitt thanked the SpaceX and Tesla founder on behalf of the White House Thursday hours after he announced online that his tenure as a ‘Special Government Employee’ was ending.
‘Of course, as you know, Elon Musk announced last night his departure as an official special government employee from the Trump administration. We thank him for his service. We thank him for getting those off of the ground and the efforts to cut waste, fraud and abuse,’ said Leavitt, as Musk’s 130-stint came to a conclusion.
President Trump said back in April that Musk would be leaving in ‘a few months,’ adding that ‘I want him to stay as long as possible’ but adding, ‘There’s going to be a point where he’s going to have to leave.’
Musk has been conducting a series of interviews timed to his departure, and used one of them with CBS to rip the ‘big, beautiful bill’ that squeaked through the House. It is Trump’s top legislative priority and contains a $4.5 trillion extension of the Trump tax cuts – though the White House hit back on Congressional Budget Office cost estimates Thursday.
‘I was 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,’ said Musk.
‘I think a bill can be big or it can be beautiful, but I don’t know if it can be both,’ Musk said. ‘My personal opinion.’
The White House thanked Musk for his service on Thursday as his tenure in government ended. Musk said he was ‘disappointed’ in Trump’s ‘big beautiful bill,’ because it ‘increases the budget deficit’
The CBO says the bill would increase deficits for several consecutive years.
‘The President is very proud of the one big, beautiful bill, and he wants to see it passed. He wants the Senate to get to work on it and send it to his desk as quickly as possible,’ Leavitt said.
Leavitt’s relatively pro forma praise of Musk comes two months after Trump gushed about the billionaire as his DOGE team was gathering a trove of data on agencies while slashing staff and identifying contracts for immediate cancelation.
‘What he is is a patriot,’ Trump said. ‘Here’s a man that I can tell you, he’s a friend of mine, he’s become a friend of mine … He’s a patriot more than anything else … He’s never asked me for a thing, and I think that’s an amazing tribute.’
Musk has been defending his tenure and that of his team of disruptors in public exit interviews. ‘I think I probably did spend a bit too much time on politics,’ Musk told Ars Technica this week when asked about priorities and the latest failed SpaceX launch.
‘DOGE is just becoming the whipping boy for everything,’ he told the Washington Post.
Trump on Wednesday avoided attacking the world’s richest man when asked about Musk’s surprising slam on the budget ‘reconciliation’ bill now making its way through the Senate.
Musk’s DOGE website says it identified $175 billion in cuts, an amount that falls short of the $2 trillion Musk said he was seeking to slash.
Musk ends his tenure with an ‘under water’ approval rating, with just a 39 percent favorable rating compared to 54 percent who have an ‘unfavorable’ opinion of him.
‘We thank him for his service,’ White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said of billionaire Elon Musk, whose tenure as a ‘Special Government Employee’ has ended
Musk’s departure wraps up a memorable tenure where he became a lightning rod
His ‘bromance’ with Trump had Musk making repeated trips to Mar-a-Lago. Trump even attended a viewing of the launch of the sixth test flight of the SpaceX Starship rocket on November 19, 2024 in Brownsville, Texas
