Vice President J.D. Vance on Wednesday dismissed reports that President Donald Trump was unhappy with billionaire Elon Musk’s role at DOGE and that Musk was planning to leave the administration.
“First of all, that report I saw was total fake news,” Vance said in a Fox News interview, referring to a Politico article claiming Trump had privately told cabinet members that Musk would soon be “stepping back.”
Vance clarified that Musk was brought on as a special advisor for a six-month initiative aimed at streamlining government operations and reducing bureaucracy. A White House special advisor role comes with a 130-day limit, which is set to expire in late May or early June. However, Vice President Vance said Elon Musk would continue to advise the administration even after that period ends.
“We said that’s going to take about six months, and that’s what Elon signed up for, but of course, he’s going to continue to be an advisor,” the vice president told the outlet, adding that the DOGE effort would go on even after Musk’s departure.
“The work of DOGE is not even close to done, the work of Elon is not even close to done,” Vance assured the outlet.
Vance praised Musk for helping eliminate “fraudulent grants” in the federal government and for addressing abuses within the Social Security system.
“DOGE has got a lot of work to do, and that work is going to continue after Elon leaves but fundamentally Elon is going to remain a friend and advisor of both me and the president and he’s done a lot of good things,” Vance said.
Since Musk began aggressively cutting federal programs and slashing grants favored by Democrats, he has become a lightning rod for criticism from the left. Protesters have targeted his Tesla company, with some even vandalizing the cars in public.
The wave of backlash has made some Republicans uneasy, prompting a few to urge President Trump to distance himself from Musk.
However, sources familiar with the situation told DailyMail.com that any rumors of a falling-out between Musk and the president are “garbage” and “fake news.”
Musk went on to retweet the press secretary’s post, adding: “Yeah, fake news.”
Last month, a fake recording of Vance ‘criticizing’ Musk went viral on social media. William Martin, the communications director for the vice president, has since said that the recording is not real and was AI-generated.
“Most certainly not the Vice President,” he wrote on X, along with a link to a post that has since been taken down.
Vance also responded on X to the fake video, writing, “It’s a fake AI-generated clip. I’m not surprised this guy doesn’t have the intelligence to recognize this fact, but I wonder if he has the integrity to delete it now that he knows it’s false. If not, it could be defamation. I guess we’ll find out!”
While AI tools are getting smarter and more popular, the amount of false video and audio content made by AI is growing very quickly.
The sound quality is terrible and distorted. It’s not clear where or why the audio came from, and it’s not explained why a random social media account would have a private recording of the vice president talking, which is a very unlikely scenario.
The video seems to have come from the TikTok account Joseiitalia, where it had already been seen 1.5 million times. It was also shared on X, where it got over 500,000 views, and it has been posted on several Reddit threads.
In the recording itself, the person imitating Vance talks negatively about Musk, saying: “Everything that he’s doing is getting criticized in the media, and he says that he’s helping and he’s not, he’s making us look bad.”
The voice also says, “he’s making me look bad,” and “he has the audacity to act like he is an elected official. I am an elected official, I am the important one in this situation.”