Elon Musk has formally left his role in Donald Trump’s administration.
Mr Trump confirmed the expected departure at a news conference on Friday, where he thanked Mr Musk “for his incredible service” with his work for the Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, and suggested he would continue to be “back and forth”.
Mr Trump also handed Mr Musk a golden key in a White House-branded box, which he described as a “special present”.
“Elon gave an incredible service. [There is] nobody like him. And he had to go through the slings and the arrows, which is a shame, because he is an incredible patriot,” Mr Trump said of the tech billionaire.
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The US president praised Mr Musk as “one of the greatest business leaders and innovators the world has ever produced”, commending him for “stepping forward to put his talents into our nation” by leading DOGE.
Meanwhile, Mr Musk, who was wearing a DOGE-branded baseball cap and a T-shirt with “The Dogefather” written on it, said it was “not the end of DOGE, but the beginning” and that the DOGE team would “only grow stronger”.
He also said he would continue to visit the White House and would still be an adviser to Mr Trump.
Mr Musk was handed the task of cutting government spending by sacking federal workers and eliminating bureaucratic waste as head of the newly formed DOGE department.
The billionaire owner of Tesla, SpaceX, and X oversaw drastic cuts to America’s humanitarian efforts, leading to criticism that the US was relinquishing some of its global influence.
Despite promising to save taxpayers as much as $2trn (£1.5trn), DOGE currently estimates its efforts have saved $175bn (£130bn).
Mr Musk said the savings could run even higher, saying in the Oval Office: “We do expect over time the trillion dollars in savings. Say by the middle of next year, with presidential support, we can do it.”
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Mr Trump read out a list of savings DOGE has allegedly made, including cutting $101m spent on DEI (diversity, equity and inclusion) policies in the Department of Education, $59m on hotel rooms for migrants in New York, $42m on a project for social and behavioural change in Uganda, £24m “for an Arab Sesame Street” and $8m “for making mice transgender”.
But questions have also been raised about whether the department has actually saved taxpayers as much money as suggested.
In a post on X on Thursday, Mr Trump said “he [Musk] will, always, be with us, helping all the way. Elon is terrific!”.
The 53-year-old – who famously brought his son X Æ A-12 to the Oval Office – has expressed frustration about resistance to his ideas, and clashed with other senior members of the Trump administration.
But speaking to Gillian Joseph on The World earlier this week, Musk’s father, Errol Musk insisted there was “no rift between Elon and Donald Trump”.
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As a “special government employee”, US law allowed him to serve for 130 days, which would have ended around Friday.
He announced he was leaving in a post on X, in which he said: “I would like to thank President Donald Trump for the opportunity to reduce wasteful spending.”
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