Elon Musk caught both supporters and critics off guard during a Wednesday call with Wall Street analysts, where he addressed his future with the U.S. Department of Government Efficiency and the agency’s potential direction without him leading it. Speaking during Tesla’s quarterly earnings call—meant to calm investors concerned about the company’s recent stock dip—Musk took a moment to thank the DOGE team and President Donald Trump for backing his efforts to dramatically streamline and reduce the size of the federal government.
“I think that the work that we’re doing there is actually very important for trying to rein in the insane deficit that is leading our country, the United States, to destruction, and the DOGE team has made a lot of progress in addressing waste and fraud,” he said, hinting that he has faced “blowback” from entrenched interests upset that his agency has disrupted their revenue streams. They “will try to attack me and the DOGE team and anything associated with me,” he added.
To safeguard the integrity of DOGE’s mission, Musk announced he has begun preparations to step down from his role as a special government employee serving at the discretion of Trump. He stated that this move is necessary to preserve the agency’s legacy and ensure its work continues without political interference. “If the ship of America goes down, we all go down with it,” Musk warned.
Elsewhere in his remarks, Musk claimed that recent protests and acts of vandalism at Tesla dealerships are being driven by welfare recipients who, he alleged, “won’t admit” their benefits are fraudulent and instead “find some other” reason to oppose the efforts of both himself and the Department of Government Efficiency. “The large slug of work to get the DOGE team in place and working in the government, to get the financial house in order, is mostly done, and I think starting probably next month, May, my time allocation to DOGE will drop significantly,” he said, adding he may have to continue advising on countermeasures to fraud “for the remainder of the president’s term.”
Musk’s potential departure would mark the most significant personnel shift since the beginning of the Trump administration. A close ally of President Trump, Musk poured over $250 million into get-out-the-vote efforts to help secure Trump’s election and has remained a constant presence alongside him—prompting critics to mockingly refer to him as the White House’s “co-president.” While committed to executing the largest government downsizing in U.S. history, Musk is acutely aware of the toll his absence has taken on Tesla. According to ABC News, the company’s stock has dropped 71% in the first quarter of the year, and its total revenue has fallen short of analysts’ projections.