Elon Musk to step down from DOGE and quit Washington DC

US President Donald Trump's billionaire ally Elon Musk has signalled that he is planning to step down from his cost-cutting role at the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) by the end of May and leave Washington DC after his DOGE purge of Federal departments after reducing the US deficit by $1 trillion, slimming current total federal spending levels down to about $6 trillion. Fifty-three-year-old Tesla chief and several top aides at DOGE sat down for Fox News' "Special Report with Bret Baier", where they talked about their work to improve America's balance sheets and how they were reaching closer to their goal, which would halve the annual federal deficit. "It's disadvantageous for me to be in the govt, not advantageous. If I wasn't in the govt, I could push for things that are advantageous to my company.Everything I do is under extreme scrutiny. Every DOGE action is public. It's most amount of transparency ever," Musk said.
Musk, who was appointed as a special advisor to President Trump as he spearheaded the government's cost-cutting efforts, said "he's done". He said his team was averaging "$4 billion a day" and had accomplished "most of the work required to reduce the deficit by a trillion dollars within 130 days".As per DOGE estimates, the department's efforts, including workforce reductions, asset sales and contract cancellations, have saved US taxpayers $115 billion as of March 24. 

Contract update!

Over the last 3 days, agencies terminated 121 wasteful contracts with a ceiling value of $351M and savings of $156M, including a $1.6M DEI contract for “strategies for implementing ‘social emotional’ learning”, and a $143K Dept. of Transportation contract for… pic.twitter.com/oueA0aXZ18

— Department of Government Efficiency (@DOGE) March 29, 2025

Musk is also facing numerous lawsuits that claim DOGE acted without legal authority and violated privacy laws. So far, he has defended his work at DOGE and pushed back on mounting criticism of the massive disruption caused by the department's work. Elon Musk's remarks about stepping down from the DOGE role came amid nationwide protests against his electric vehicle company, Tesla. In the last month, Tesla's share price witnessed a steep decline and fell by over 5 per cent last Monday. Musk has blazed through federal agencies since late January, overseeing the massfiring of staffers and dramatically reducing agency spending, including all but shuttering the 10,000-person USAID and the 1,700-person Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Musk's role in slashing the federal workforce and government agency budgets has drawn political backlash in recent weeks, with Tesla cars and dealerships hit by a spate of vandalism and demonstrations across the country.