Elon Musk has decided to cut back his responsibilities in Donald Trump’s government after his car brand’s profits plummeted £308,000,000 in just three months.
He’s said he will dedicate more time to Tesla beginning in May after the company has faced a backlash and angry protests over his leadership of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).
Tesla has struggled to sell cars to consumers angry over its role in the Trump administration.
Musk has also publicly supported far-right politicians in Europe and alienated potential buyers there.
Some investors have complained he is too distracted by his role at the DOGE to be running Tesla and that he should either relinquish his position as CEO or abandon his advisory role in Washington.
Now, it appears he’s listening – and said his ‘time allocation to DOGE will drop significantly’ starting next month, adding that he’d only spend ‘two days per week’ on government duties – ‘as long as the president would like me to do so and as long as it’s useful’.
What is DOGE?
The acronym ‘DOGE’ is a nod to Musk’s favourite cryptocurrency, Dogecoin.
However, in the government, it stands for Department of Government Efficiency, and Musk was nominated to lead it by Trump before he was re-elected.
Before the department was officially launched, Trump said in a statement that Musk would work from outside the government to offer the White House ‘advice and guidance’ to ‘drive large-scale structural reform, and create an entrepreneurial approach to Government never seen before’.
That ‘structural reform’ ended up being the termination of thousands of government employees.
He famously ordered US government staff to list what they had done at work in the past week – or risk being fired.
What happened to Tesla’s stock price?
Tesla, based in Austin, Texas, said on Tuesday that quarterly profits fell by 71%, and Tesla’s stock plummeted more than 40%.
Musk alone has lost at least £102 billion since the beginning of 2025, according to Bloomberg.
Tesla stocks hit an all-time high in December, but have since plummeted.
This all left Trump’s right-hand man on the brink of tears in March when he spoke with Fox Business about the challenges he is facing.
He told the show he was running his businesses with ‘great difficulty’.
Musk also took to X to say Tesla will ‘be fine long-term’.
Are Musk and Trump still friends?
Hard to say.
Tensions between the pair recently came to a head when Donald Trump put a personal stop to Elon Musk’s attendance in a highly classified China meeting.
Furious, he ordered his staff to ensure Musk ‘doesn’t go’ after finding out Musk had been planning to attend the meeting.
It’s unclear what the ‘highly classified’ China meeting entailed, but it comes as the US is embroiled in a tariff war with the global superpower.
‘What the f**k is Elon doing there? Make sure he doesn’t go,’ Trump reportedly told a staff member, according to Axios.
But, reports say Musk will continue to serve in an ‘advisory role’ to Trump and his administration, so it’s highly unlikely he’ll leave the government in full.
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