Elon Musk Steps Down as Trump’s Top Adviser
(MENAFN) Billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk officially stepped down Wednesday from his position as a top adviser to U.S. President Donald Trump.
“As my scheduled time as a Special Government Employee comes to an end, I would like to thank President @realDonaldTrump for the opportunity to reduce wasteful spending,” Musk said in a statement shared on X.
He added, “The @DOGE mission will only strengthen over time as it becomes a way of life throughout the government.”
Confirmation of Musk’s exit from the administration came from a White House official who spoke to a news outlet.
Trump appointed Musk to head the Department of Government Efficiency on his first day in office, tasking him with rooting out unnecessary government expenditures.
Under Musk’s leadership, thousands of federal positions have been eliminated.
However, the department’s aggressive downsizing, including plans to dismantle agencies like the US Agency for International Development (USAID) and accessing sensitive government data without sufficient oversight, has ignited significant controversy.
Musk’s departure occurs amid a growing rift with Trump over the president’s landmark spending and tax cut legislation, which Musk argues will exacerbate the federal deficit rather than reduce it.
“I was, like, disappointed to see the massive spending bill, frankly, which increases the budget deficit, not just decrease it, and undermines the work that the DOGE team is doing,” Musk told a new agency in an interview aired Sunday.
Trump, meanwhile, has pushed back against claims that his “big, beautiful bill” will worsen the deficit, despite sharp criticism from some within his own party. The president recently quelled a GOP revolt to pass the bill through the House of Representatives by a razor-thin margin of 215 to 214.
The bill now moves to the Senate, where it faces strong opposition from all Democrats and uncertainty from key Republicans, some of whom have either vowed to oppose it or remain undecided.
“I think the cuts currently in the bill are wimpy and anemic, but I still would support the bill even with wimpy and anemic cuts if they weren’t going to explode the debt," said Republican Senator Rand Paul, a notable holdout, in an interview with a media outlet.
Paul also insisted that the proposed $4 trillion increase to the debt limit must be removed, warning, “the math doesn’t add up.”
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