Elon Musk could soon step back from his role as front man for the Trump administration’s government-cutting work, but DOGE doesn’t appear to be going anywhere.
President Donald Trump has told his allies that Musk will be stepping back from his current role, POLITICO reported this week. The White House denied that Musk’s departure is imminent, although Musk is serving as a temporary government employee, and he and Trump have both signaled recently that Musk’s role is likely to change.
“At some point, Elon’s going to want to go back to his company,” Trump said Monday as he praised Musk’s work so far. The billionaire businessman Musk said in an interview last week that his DOGE team “will have accomplished most of the work required” to cut spending within the 130-day window of his special government employment status.
A Musk exit could diffuse the criticism centered on the DOGE leader who has become the face of the Trump team’s early burst of activity to slash federal spending and the size of the government workforce. But the DOGE team and its Musk-instilled ethos are expected to carry on even if he steps back.
“Even if Musk leaves, Muskism will not leave with him,” said Lisa Gilbert, co-president of the nonprofit watchdog group Public Citizen. “It’s not the kind of thing that a single human — as much of a villain as he is and has become — fully controls.”
Musk has drawn praise from Trump and conservatives for driving the effort to cut government spending by slashing contracts and grants and terminating federal employees. “The government is not efficient, and there is a lot of waste and fraud,” Musk told Fox News last week. He said he’s confident his team will have done most of the work required to meet its goal of cutting the deficit by $1 trillion within the 130-day window.
After an early burst of activity led by Musk, DOGE employees have fanned out across federal agencies to drill into their finances and cut costs. Meanwhile, Trump directed his political appointees in those agencies to work with DOGE on large-scale workforce reductions.
“There will be a point at which the secretaries will be able to do this work,” Trump said Monday when asked about DOGE’s work in a post-Musk era.
Trump Cabinet takes up DOGE duties
Indeed, Trump’s Cabinet secretaries have publicly embraced the DOGE efforts.
“Loving the exceptional partnership @EPA has had with @ElonMusk and the entire @DOGE team to pursue every efficiency possible as we end wasteful spending and practices,” EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin posted on the social media platform X in March.
“Our team at @Interior is working with DOGE to streamline government, eliminate waste, and upgrade our critical infrastructure,” Interior Secretary Doug Burgum posted last month. “This includes reviewing every one of the 36,000 Department of the Interior Grants & Contracts for waste, fraud, and abuse.”
Zeldin, who has said he hopes to slash EPA’s spending by at least 65 percent, is “Elon Musk’s top protege and sycophant,” said Jeremy Symons, a senior adviser at the Environmental Protection Network, a group of former EPA employees who oppose Trump administration policies. “I actually don’t expect things to change, given that Lee Zeldin is mini-Musk.”
Some conservatives credit Musk for getting the ball rolling on a dramatic government reshaping at a scope that other politicians have promised but couldn’t deliver.
“The entire beginning was helpful,” Tom Pyle, president of the conservative think tank Institute for Energy Research, said of Musk’s early DOGE approach. “You cannot make change in Washington incrementally.”
In some ways, Musk — who’s “impervious to a lot of things because of his wealth” — “took the slings and arrows for President Trump in this process” during DOGE’s early days, Pyle said. But Trump wasn’t “trying to distance himself from the effort,” Pyle added. Rather, he said, the president “embraced it.”
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said Wednesday that Trump and Musk have both publicly stated that Musk “will depart from public service as a special government employee when his incredible work at DOGE is complete.” The White House did not respond to a request for additional details about Musk’s time frame.
In his executive order establishing DOGE as a temporary organization, Trump gave the operation a July 4, 2026, termination date. The administration has also laid out a series of deadlines for agencies to continue cuts to the workforce, federal properties and regulations. Some of those deadlines are months from now.
“The signaling I’ve seen from agency heads is that they are still planning to do a lot of workforce restructuring, regardless of whether Elon Musk is there or not,” said Jenny Mattingley, vice president of government affairs at the nonpartisan Partnership for Public Service. “I also haven’t heard anything about the DOGE teams leaving,” she added. “So if those folks stay in place, my assumption would be that they are going to continue the work that they’ve started already.”
Musk has brought publicity to the DOGE effort, Mattingley said, which could dissipate if Musk steps back.
Less publicity surrounding the DOGE effort could be concerning, Mattingley said. “It’s already not transparent,” she said of the DOGE cuts. “With less publicity, do the changes still happen, but there’s even less transparency, because people aren’t seeing it all the time?”
Musk and his team regularly tout DOGE’s transparency, pointing to their website that details cuts to grants, contracts and leases. But that website has faced criticism for containing inaccuracies. DOGE isn’t perfect, Musk has said. “When we do make mistakes, we correct them quickly and we we move on,” he said in the Fox News interview.
Federal employees concerned about the Musk-driven cuts don’t expect major changes even if he reduces his role with the Trump administration.
“We believe that he has put the machinery together to continue these outrageous cuts to EPA,” said Nicole Cantello, president of a union local that represents EPA staff.
“We are deeply concerned that the individuals he has left behind and President Trump are still backing a wholesale removal of EPA employees who are protecting human health and the environment,” Cantello said. With or without Musk, she said, “it seems like things are carrying on.”
