Last week, Elon Musk said he had “done enough” after spending five months working hand in hand with President Donald Trump as head of the Department of Government Efficiency.
As the tech CEO’s focus swings away from the White House and back to the companies that made him the richest man in the world, Newsweek asked experts whether his time on the front line of politics was a success or a failure.
Newsweek has contacted Musk for comment via the press office for X, formerly Twitter.
The Context
While Musk has steadily increased his political commentary over the past several years, his firsthand involvement in campaigning began during the 2024 presidential election. He endorsed Trump after the Pennsylvania assassination attempt and donated millions to the Republican‘s campaign via America PAC, Musk’s super political action committee. After Trump’s victory in November, Musk joined his team as the head of DOGE, a project the billionaire had pitched on the campaign trail to cut federal spending and reduce the size of the government.
What To Know
The tech mogul entered politics last year with the explicit purpose of getting Trump elected for a second term as president, spending more than $75 million in the process.
While Musk achieved that goal, experts told Newsweek that his time at the White House would come to be seen as a mixed bag, especially with the big expectations the billionaire had attached to his signature project, DOGE.
“Musk succeeded in grabbing attention and rebranding government reform as a Silicon Valley-style disruption,” Casey Burgat, the director of legislative affairs at George Washington University, said. “But beyond the optics, DOGE has fallen far short of its promises.”
“The administration pledged $2 trillion in savings; independent reviews suggest only a fraction of that has materialized, and even those numbers are riddled with accounting errors and double-counted wins,” he added.
DOGE’s own count of its savings puts the total at $170 billion, and even though it’s far less than Musk’s original pledge, he has been one of the figures in Trump’s circle most strongly associated with cuts to federal spending, prompting protests against his companies, most notably Tesla.
Burgat continued: “Musk’s reputation has undergone a sharp recalibration. For years, he cultivated a persona as an eccentric but brilliant innovator. But his stint with DOGE placed him squarely in the political arena—where admiration curdles fast.
“For critics, he’s become a symbol of unaccountable power: a billionaire with a government badge, running roughshod over norms and institutions.
“Even many conservatives who cheered his takedowns of federal ‘bloat’ are now quietly distancing themselves as the legal challenges pile up and as Musk’s more erratic behavior—including the targeting of public officials and abrupt policy reversals—becomes a political liability.”
Eric Schiffer, a top tech investor and the chair of the private equity firm Patriarch Organization, told Newsweek that recency bias was still affecting public perception of Musk’s political spree, and that over time it would be seen differently, much like Trump himself.
Schiffer said: “The public backlash is a question of ‘how much of this is real?’ No one really knows how deep it is with the Trump administration up to this point, and they’re directing that anger at a vulnerability of Trump, which is Elon, and his wealth.”
He also said that while Tesla‘s reputation was slumping, its sales numbers remained strong, and the peak of anti-Musk protests had likely passed.
Schiffer continued: “So far, he’s holding up fairly well. In China, the numbers are still strong. We’re going to have to see how it shakes out. The challenge is the same in Europe and overseas, where he’s associated with draconian policies. But that could also turn.
“As tariffs begin to be integrated, and Elon distances himself from the administration, people won’t retain long-term negative biases. They dissipate over time.”
Conversely, Burgat said Musk’s time in politics served to accelerate polarization, with those who support him going even further, while his critics grew to oppose him even more.
“Among the public, the polarization has intensified,” he said. “For fans, he’s still a maverick hero; for skeptics, he’s morphed into something far more dangerous: a privatized version of government without the guardrails.”
What Happens Next
Musk said in a recent meeting with Tesla investors that he would be spending more time with the company. He said in April, “I think starting probably next month, May, my time allocation to DOGE will drop significantly.”
Vice President JD Vance echoed the sentiment that DOGE would continue in some form without Musk, telling reporters: “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 an adviser of both me and the president.”
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