As Musk Leaves DOGE, What Comes Next After the Billionaire’s Government Experiment?

Elon Musk came to Washington with a chainsaw in hand, promising to slash trillions in government waste as a member of the Trump Administration. Three months later, he’s leaving behind a complicated legacy that includes unmet expectations and uneasy questions about his leadership.

On Friday, as Musk’s brief stint in government formally came to an end, the billionaire entrepreneur stood beside President Donald Trump in the Oval Office for a final farewell. Wearing a black “DOGE” baseball cap and a T-shirt emblazoned with the word “Dogefather,” Musk said he hoped to continue to be a “friend and adviser to the President” and expressed confidence that the cost-cutting effort he started would eventually find the $1 trillion in savings he had promised.

“The DOGE team will only grow stronger over time,” he said, referring to the Department of Government Efficiency, a network of engineers he led who were tasked with rooting out waste, fraud, and abuse from the federal government. 

Musk’s role as a special government employee working for Trump was always intended to be temporary, and he had recently expressed interest in returning his focus to his businesses, as Tesla in particular suffered from plunging sales. But his departure, announced earlier this week, marks a striking turning point for the federal government’s ambitious cost-cutting agency he helped define.

During his brief stint in Washington, DOGE was perhaps best known for laying off thousands of federal employees and eviscerating government agencies whose funding had already been appropriated by Congress, sparking numerous legal challenges. Musk’s contentious slash-and-burn approach to cutting federal spending made him perhaps the most visible enemy of the left during the first 100 days of Trump’s second presidency, even as he became a hero to many on the right.

White House officials have said that DOGE’s efforts will continue after Musk leaves, and that he would likely continue to advise the President. "Elon is really not leaving. He’s going to be back and forth, I have a feeling," Trump said Friday. "It’s his baby.”

Here’s what to know about the future of DOGE without Musk.

Why is Musk leaving?

Musk’s exit had long been expected. As a special government employee, his role came with a 130-day cap, which expired on Friday, May 30. Such designations are typically given to experts or consultants for specific roles on a temporary basis, allowing them to avoid required divestments of financial interests that may conflict with their federal work.

“My time as a special government employee necessarily had to end,” Musk said in the Oval Office on Friday. “It was a limited time thing.”

But Musk, who spent nearly his entire career working in Silicon Valley, had also grown increasingly frustrated with working in government. He recently told The Washington Post that the “federal bureaucracy situation is much worse” than he expected, and it was “an uphill battle trying to improve things in D.C., to say the least.” He added in an interview with Ars Technica that “I probably did spend a bit too much time on politics” and that he intentionally “reduced” his involvement “significantly in recent weeks.”

Read more: Revisiting Elon Musk’s Most Controversial Moments in the White House

A recent Washington Post-ABC News-Ipsos poll found that a majority of Americans disapproved of Musk’s job performance in the Trump Administration. His entry into American politics also had real financial consequences for his companies. In just a matter of months, the world’s richest man had lost billions of dollars since he donated nearly $300 million to get Trump and other Republicans elected last year. Sales for his electric vehicle company Tesla, in particular, have fallen significantly.

“He didn’t need this,” Trump said on Friday. “And we find that government’s a little nasty on occasion.”

“Yeah, at times,” Musk quickly shot back, drawing a chuckle from some in the room.

He went on to explain that he felt DOGE had become a “bogeyman,” blamed for every cut to federal spending even when it wasn’t responsible: “It just became a bit ridiculous.”

Musk had also clashed with top White House officials during his tenure in government. In April, he criticized White House trade adviser Peter Navarro over the sweeping tariffs Trump had imposed on trading partners. In a series of posts on X, Musk called Navarro a “moron” and added that Tesla “has the most American-made cars. Navarro is dumber than a sack of bricks.” He followed with an apology, saying the comparison was “so unfair to bricks.”

Trump on Friday thanked Musk for leading “the most sweeping and consequential government reform program in generations,” presenting him with a golden key emblazoned with the White House insignia.

But in recent weeks, their relationship appeared to cool off. Musk, who once called himself Trump’s “first buddy” and appeared in his Cabinet meetings, had noticeably distanced himself after having an unusually visible presence in the early days of Trump’s Administration. He had even publicly criticized Trump’s so-called “Big, Beautiful” domestic spending bill that passed the House last week, saying he was “disappointed” that it would increase the federal deficit. “I think a bill can be big or it could be beautiful,” Musk told CBS News a day before he announced his departure. “But I don’t know if it could be both.” The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office has said that the bill’s tax provisions would increase federal deficits by $3.8 trillion over the decade, while cuts to Medicaid, food stamps and other services would only reduce spending by slightly more than $1 trillion over the same period. The White House insists that the bill would reduce the deficit.

Musk has said he would pivot back to running his companies “24/7” now that he’s finished with DOGE. He also vowed to substantially cut back his political spending in future elections after he pumped nearly $300 million into the 2024 election helping Trump and other Republican candidates. "I think in terms of political spending, I'm going to do a lot less in the future," Musk said on May 20. "I think I've done enough."

What has DOGE accomplished?

The U.S. DOGE Service, launched by executive order on Trump’s first day back in office, was created to eradicate what the White House called waste, fraud and abuse from the government—one of the President’s campaign promises. Trump tapped Musk, the world’s richest person and a top campaign donor, to lead the effort, calling him “a smart guy” who “really cares for our country.”

In later court filings, however, the government argued that Amy Gleason was DOGE’s administrator, even though Musk had been the public face of the effort.

Under their leadership, receipts posted to DOGE’s website show it has terminated more than 10,000 federal contracts it deems unnecessary or wasteful, including high-profile agreements related to federal technology infrastructure and healthcare programs. The contracts span around 40 federal departments and agencies, according to DOGE, totaling roughly $32 billion of the $175 billion it claims to have saved. 

TIME has not been able to independently verify those savings, and media outlets have found DOGE’s assertions to be exaggerated and misleading. Regardless, the $175 billion in reported savings is well short of Musk’s initial goal: He had previously said he expects to cut $2 trillion from the nation’s roughly $6.8 trillion federal budget, before walking back that figure to $1 trillion.

During the news conference on Friday, Trump listed several instances where federal money was going to “waste,” including $101 million for diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs at the Department of Education, $45 million for DEI scholarships in Burma, $42 million for social and behavioral change campaigns in Uganda, $20 million for producing an Arabic version of Sesame Street, $59 million for hotel rooms for undocumented migrants in New York City, and $8 million for research to make mice transgender among others.

Several of those alleged expenses have been refuted.

But the controversy over specific cuts were just one part of the upheaval Musk is leaving behind. His unorthodox—and often secretive—slash-and-burn tactics sowed chaos during his tenure in the government, critics say. Early on, he was criticized for sending his team of DOGE representatives—mostly young engineers—into federal buildings to gain access to sensitive internal systems. It was part of his effort to shutter agencies that Musk and others in the Administration disliked, including the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and the U.S. Institute of Peace, whose funding had already been appropriated by Congress. The impacts of such moves were felt internationally: A global health researcher at Boston University estimated that the Administration's cuts to USAID alone have led to hundreds of thousands of deaths, most of them children.

DOGE’s restructuring efforts also wreaked havoc on federal workers and prompted a litany of lawsuits seeking to rein in Musk’s chainsaw, many of them questioning the legality of DOGE's sweeping access to confidential data and the dismantling of agencies. More than 200,000 federal workers and contractors were laid off across more than a dozen agencies. The firings began after the government’s offer for federal workers to accept a so-called buyout—an offer initiated by Musk allies at the Office of Personnel Management—expired on Feb. 12. Musk later introduced a controversial requirement that employees send emails listing five things they accomplished each week, an effort he said would increase accountability.

Critics argued that the government was consolidating too much power under Musk, a private citizen.

What’s next for DOGE?

Although Musk is formally departing the government to focus more on his companies, he said Friday that he plans to continue advising Trump and DOGE. “I expect to continue to provide advice whenever the President would like that advice,” Musk said.

Trump interjected: “I hope so.”

Trump and Musk both said that DOGE’s efforts will continue following Musk’s departure, but the White House has yet to announce details on its revised leadership structure. The agency is scheduled to sunset in 2026.

White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said Thursday that DOGE will be led by “each and every member of the President’s cabinet and the President himself.” She added that the goal remains the same: to cut waste, fraud, and abuse from the government.

Some have speculated that Russell Vought, director of the Office of Management and Budget known for his role drafting the conservative Project 2025 agenda, could soon take the helm of DOGE. The longtime Trump ally and budget guru worked closely with Musk on the initiative, leading efforts to cut agency regulations and pushing a controversial idea in favor of Trump’s authority to impound funds.