After what Elon Musk described as an "intense" first three months under President Donald Trump — and amid a sharp drop in Tesla’s first-quarter profit — the director of the Department of Government Efficiency announced last week that he will step back from his near round-the-clock role at the White House. The billionaire tech mogul, who also owns SpaceX and X, shared his reasons during a candid group interview with a dozen journalists, where he also offered a rare glimpse into his unconventional working arrangement. Musk recounted regular overnight stays in the Lincoln Bedroom at Trump’s invitation.
From late-night ice cream runs, caramel-flavored Häagen-Dazs, to be exact, to better decisions he says he could have made, the tech mogul who heads the Department of Government Efficiency pulled back the curtain on his time working, and sleeping, at the White House in a group interview with a dozen journalists. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Now, with Trump's first 100 days behind us, Musk — the world's richest man — is preparing to significantly scale back his role leading the cost-cutting DOGE, which has taken a battering ram to the federal government, slashing programs and cutting workforces. “Now we’re getting more of a rhythm,” Musk told reporters at the White House last week.
“And so the amount of time that it’s necessary for me to spend here is much less, and I can return to primarily running my companies, which do need me.” More: Upscale Austin suburb annoyed with Elon Musk's security, parties, 16-foot-high chain fence What is DOGE? The Department of Government Efficiency was established by Trump through one of more than 100 executive orders issued on Inauguration Day. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Musk was appointed to lead the department, which was created to modernize federal technology and streamline operations in an effort to boost governmental efficiency and productivity.
At its launch, Musk pledged that DOGE would cut $2 trillion from the $7 trillion federal budget. But as of May 2025, the department has only achieved $160 billion in cuts, primarily by auditing and canceling federal contracts and slashing agency workforces. Some agencies are now scrambling to function after deep staffing reductions — including the Federal Aviation Administration, which has seen nearly two weeks of consecutive delays at one of the nation's largest airports, and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which faces critical shortages just ahead of hurricane season, its busiest time of year.
More: SpaceX could soon see five times as many launches from Starbase, Texas, FAA says When is Elon Musk leaving DOGE? Moving forward, Musk is not permanently leaving the White House or his position as DOGE Director. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Instead, he said he expects to reduce his time to about a day or two a week working on DOGE matters and "every other week" in Washington as he returns his attention to Tesla, which dropped in stock by 36% in the first quarter of 2025 — the company's worst performance for any period since 2022.
What will happen to DOGE if Elon Musk steps down? Because DOGE is not an official agency within the U.S. government — a status that would require congressional approval — and was instead created by Trump through executive order, Musk’s decision to scale back may have limited practical impact. As a “special government employee,” Musk is permitted to work only a set number of days per year.
Under that classification, he is capped at 130 workdays annually in his White House role. According to a 2007 Department of Justice memo, any day an SGE performs any government work, regardless of the hours, counts as a full day toward the annual limit. Assuming Musk has maintained a five-day workweek since Trump’s inauguration on Jan. 20, he is likely approaching that limit.
Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Still, it's unclear how many days he has officially worked, whether any agency is tracking that time, or how the restriction would be enforced. Since DOGE itself is not a permanent agency, it also has an expiration date. The executive order that established it is set to expire on July 4, 2026.
In December, Musk appeared to acknowledge that timeline in a tweet responding to speculation about the agency's end: “The final step of DOGE is to delete itself,” he wrote. This article originally appeared on Austin American-Statesman: Is Elon Musk leaving DOGE? Tesla CEO to cut days at White House in May
