Elon Musk has exited the White House—physically, at least.
President Donald Trump’s “special government employee” is no longer working within the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) offices as he prepares his exit from the Trump administration and focuses more on saving his floundering businesses from failure.
“Instead of meeting with him in person, I’m talking to him on the phone, but it’s the same net effect,” White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles told the New York Post in an interview discussing the Trump administration’s first 100 days.
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“He’s not out of it altogether. He’s just not physically present as much as he was,” Wiles said.
Wiles appeared to shrug off Musk’s lack of physical presence within the White House, telling the Post that while the 53-year-old “hasn’t been here physically... it really doesn’t matter much.”
She added that Musk’s DOGE staffers “aren’t going anywhere” despite revelations that the department is not delivering on its promises to slash government spending. What the group has done, however, is upend the federal operations and fire thousands of government employees in the process.
DOGE’s work will continue in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building, Wiles confirmed. The building is close to the West Wing.
“The people that are doing this work are here doing good things and paying attention to the details. He’ll be stepping back a little, but he’s certainly not abandoning it. And his people are definitely not.”
Musk is officially expected to step down in May; both he and the president have been open about the billionaire’s short-term intentions within the administration.
The Trump administration did not immediately respond to a request for comment from the Daily Beast.
As a “special government employee,” Musk is not supposed to work more than 130 total days for the government this year.
“We have to, at some point, let him go and do that. We expected to be doing it about this time. I’ll talk to Elon about it,” Trump told the BBC.
Though details of Musk’s retirement from politics appear blurry, he told investors during a Tesla earnings call earlier this month that he planned to “spend a day or two” each week on DOGE, “probably for the remainder of the president’s term.”
“Starting next month, I’ll be allocating far more of my time to Tesla, now that the major work of establishing the Department of Government Efficiency is done,” Musk said, adding that he will continue his work with DOGE “for as long as the President would like me to do so, and as long as it is useful.”
