WASHINGTON – President Donald Trump said Monday he wants to keep Elon Musk at the White House for as long as he is willing to oversee the Department of Government Efficiency but suggested the billionaire tech entrepreneur’s time could be nearing an end.
“I think he’s been amazing, but I also think he’s got a big company to run,” Trump told reporters Monday in the Oval Office before signing an executive order targeting ticket-scalping at live events. “And at some point, he’s going to be going back. He wants to.”
Musk, CEO of Tesla and SpaceX and a senior White House adviser, is working in the Trump administration as a “special government employee,” a designation for federal government employees who work 130 days or less during a calendar year. It would mean Musk’s tenure wraps at the end of May if the White House follows the federal guidelines and his government status isn’t changed.
“I’d keep him as long as I could keep him,” Trump said. “He’s a very talented guy. You know, I love very smart people. And he’s very smart, and he’s done a good job.”
As the head of DOGE, Musk has steered the Trump administration’s efforts to eliminate spending programs approved by Congress and lay off tens of thousands of federal workers in a push to drastically shrink the government.
Democrats and other Musk critics argue his leading role in the White House has given the world’s richest man dangerous access to policy decisions that raise an assortment of conflicts given SpaceX’s billions in contracts with the federal government.
The scope of Musk’s influence is far wider than DOGE. Musk has turned into the most prominent face of the Trump administration other than Trump himself, using his enormous following on X to lay out White House policy, attending Cabinet meetings, facilitating the return of two astronauts from space, and last weekend visiting Wisconsin to campaign for the Trump-backed candidate in the state’s Supreme Court election.
Under a Day 1 executive order signed by Trump, DOGE is set to terminate after 18 months of operations on July 4, 2026, coinciding with the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence.
Trump said his Cabinet secretaries will start performing the cost-cutting roles of DOGE after Musk leaves and DOGE closes down.
“At a certain point, I think it will end, but they have also gotten a big education,” Trump said of his secretaries. “There’ll be a point at which the secretaries will be able to do this work and do it very, you know, as we say, with the scalpel, and that’s what we want.”
Musk contributed nearly $300 million to boost Trump’s 2024 presidential campaign and, according to the New York Times, has signaled plans to pump an additional $100 million into a group controlled by Trump’s political operations.
Musk’s continued presence in the White House poses a potential political liability for Trump. Most Americans, 51%, hold negative views of the tech mogul, while only 39% have positive views, according to a national NBC News poll taken in March.
As Musk has turned into a polarizing political figure, Tesla sales and stock have plummeted as company facilities have become targets of vandalism and violence in acts the administration has called “domestic terrorism.”
“He’s an American patriot, but the way he’s been treated with Tesla is just terrible,” Trump said.
Musk, in an interview with Fox News last week, said it has been “disadvantageous for me to be in the government, not advantageous,” and that his “companies are suffering because I’m in the government.”
When asked about the approaching end of his 130-day special government employee status, Musk said he believes he will achieve most of the work to reach his goal of cutting $1 trillion from the federal government.
“I think we will accomplish most of the work required to reduce the deficit by a trillion dollars within that time frame,” Musk said.
Reach Joey Garrison on X @joeygarrison.
