The candle that burns brightly burns twice as fast.
Elon Musk's time in Washington, D.C., was an inferno. He was appointed the head of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) as a top advisor to President Donald Trump, though he is not considered an official member of his cabinet — an issue that comes into play later in this story.
After initially promising to eliminate trillions of dollars worth of waste, fraud, and abuse from the government's budget, Musk gradually lowered those expectations as the enormity of his task set in.
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DOGE says it has saved taxpayers $175 billion so far, or about $1,086 per taxpayer, but close scrutiny suggests that number is inflated.
For one thing, that figure does not consider all the money DOGE cuts are costing the federal government.
According to a recent study by the nonpartisan Partnership for Public Service, DOGE cuts will cost $135 billion this fiscal year.
This estimate comes from the costs associated with putting tens of thousands of federal employees on paid leave, re-hiring mistakenly fired workers, and lost productivity due to the slimmed-down government headcount.
DOGE has offered workers a deferred resignation plan that allows employees to receive full pay and benefits through September without working.
DOGE also had to rehire 24,000 government employees after a court ruling invalidated their firing.
But despite DOGE's unfinished business, Elon Musk was forced to step down from the unofficial government agency this week.
Elon Musk steps down as head of DOGE
On May 28, Elon Musk confirmed that his scheduled time as an official “special government employee“ was over.
“I would like to thank President @realDonaldTrump for the opportunity to reduce wasteful spending. The @DOGE mission will only strengthen over time as it becomes a way of life throughout the government,” Musk said in a post on X.
Musk and Trump have both known this day was coming for some time.
During Tesla's earnings call earlier this month, Musk told shareholders that he would spend more time at HQ in Austin, Texas, this quarter and wrap up his work in Washington.
In April, Trump said, “I want him to stay as long as possible. There’s going to be a point where he’s going to have to leave.”
Unlike official cabinet members like Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, as a “special government employee,“ Elon Musk never faced a Senate confirmation hearing.
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“A ‘special Government employee' (or ‘SGE') is an officer or employee in the Executive Branch of the Federal Government who is appointed to perform important, but limited, services to the Government, with or without compensation, for a period not to exceed 130 days during any period of 365 consecutive days,” the Department of Interior website says.
“This status is important because the ethics rules apply differently to individuals who qualify as SGEs versus other Federal employees and officials.”
Assuming he has worked consistently since inauguration, Musk's 130-day deadline is May 30.
Musk has work to do back at Tesla
Tesla shares have been on fire since its earnings release, despite the EV maker reporting one of its worst quarters ever.
The company reported a 9% decline in first-quarter revenue to $19.3 billion, missing analyst estimates by $2 billion.
Earnings of 27 cents per share fell short of Wall Street expectations by 34%.
One of the issues during the period was cratering demand in Europe.
While only a small percentage of sales was made in Europe, it was a challenging region in the quarter. Sales in Germany reportedly fell 62%, and numbers in Norway, the UK, and France weren't much better.
That trend has continued. Just this week, it was reported that Tesla's European sales dropped another 49% in April to 7,261, despite overall EV sales rising 34% in the region during the month, according to the European Automobile Manufacturers Association.
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Tesla sales in the region are down nearly 40% from January to April.
Musk has admitted that his political activism has turned some people off of his products. But he also says that his activism has garnered him even more new fans from the opposite end of the political spectrum.
He recently spoke at the Qatar Economic Forum, saying that any politically left-leaning buyers who abandoned the company have been replaced by people who align more with his politics.
He punctuated his point by emphasizing that Tesla has no problem with demand.
Related: Tesla sales woes mount in Europe amid disappointing update
