Elon Musk says he’s stepping back from DOGE and politics. That doesn’t mean he’s disappearing from DC.

In the midst of a tense Oval Office meeting with the president of South Africa last Wednesday, President Donald Trump made a passing reference to the man who, until recently, seemed to be omnipresent in Washington.

“Elon is from South Africa,” Trump said, gesturing toward the world’s richest man, who just so happened to be in the room. “I don’t want to get Elon involved. That’s all I have to do, get him into another thing.”

Elon Musk’s appearance at the White House came just one day after he told an audience that he planned to spend far less money on politics moving forward. And last month, the tech titan told Tesla investors that he would be scaling back his involvement in DOGE and “allocating far more” time to the electric vehicle company.

Last week demonstrated that Musk, while he may be posting less about politics and shifting his attention back to his business interests, is unlikely to completely disappear. After all, he did say on that same April earnings call that he would continue to spend one or two days a week on “government matters” for “as long as the president would like me to do so.”

Beyond his appearance in the Oval Office, Musk also showed up twice on Capitol Hill, once on Wednesday afternoon and again on Thursday morning. In both cases, he was meeting with groups of Republican lawmakers to discuss AI and other issues.

It’s a sign that Musk, even beyond his role as the informal head of DOGE, remains a trusted source of expertise for the GOP.

And if you ask Republicans about Musk, they’re still likely to gush about him.

“He is an extraordinary business leader who has created jobs throughout Texas and across the country,” Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas told BI last week, reacting to the news that Musk said would be spending less on elections. “I think he has engaged in an enormous amount of personal sacrifice, both helping produce historic election results in 2024, and then coming and working free of charge for the American people and leading DOGE.”

After meeting with Musk on Thursday, one House Republican — Rep. John James of Michigan — posted a selfie with the tech titan on X.

“Only in America could a meme become a mission to the moon and Making America Great Again,” James wrote, referring to the meme origin of the DOGE acronym.

Both Musk and the White House have also made clear that DOGE, the cost-cutting effort that has defined so much of the early months of Trump’s second presidency, will outlive Musk’s daily involvement.

“The mission of DOGE — to cut waste, fraud, and abuse — will surely continue,” White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said in a statement for this story. “DOGE employees who onboarded at their respective agencies will continue to work with President Trump’s cabinet to make our government more efficient.”

For Democrats, Musk’s continued presence is a reason to stay vigilant. Rep. Mark Pocan of Wisconsin dismissed the tech titan’s comments about stepping back from politics earlier this week, suggesting that Republicans simply understand that he’s a lightning rod of controversy.

“He put way too much money into that race,” Pocan said, referring to the 2024 election. “He’s still profiting off of that investment. He just realizes he can’t do it front and center.”

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