--- title: Elon Musk Steps Down From Official Government Role description: Musk announced his departure a day after an interview clip showed him saying Trump’s “big, beautiful” bill “undermines” DOGE. canonical: https://time.com/7289045/musk-trump-big-beautiful-bill-national-debt-deficit-disappointed-doge/ author: Chad de Guzman article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2025-05-28T06:00:00.000Z article:modified_time: 2025-05-29T03:15:28.000Z article:section: Politics og:title: Elon Musk Steps Down From Official Government Role og:description: Musk announced his departure a day after an interview clip showed him saying Trump’s “big, beautiful” bill “undermines” DOGE. og:url: https://time.com/7289045/musk-trump-big-beautiful-bill-national-debt-deficit-disappointed-doge/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt02cec1c7ff6ec1ec/6998c6f9e1ba00400b98d97b/elon-musk.jpg?branch=production&width=1024&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1024 og:image:height: 576 og:image:alt: President Trump Holds Cabinet Meeting At White House og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Elon Musk Steps Down From Official Government Role twitter:description: Musk announced his departure a day after an interview clip showed him saying Trump’s “big, beautiful” bill “undermines” DOGE. twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt02cec1c7ff6ec1ec/6998c6f9e1ba00400b98d97b/elon-musk.jpg?branch=production&width=1024&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Elon Musk Steps Down From Government Role After Criticizing Trump’s ‘Big, Beautiful’ Bill > Sponsored content. 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It explains the politics, personalities and power dynamics behind the headlines, three times a week. #### Where can I get analysis of Washington politics by email? D.C. Brief is TIME's free Washington politics newsletter, available at time.com/newsletters. It is written by a TIME senior correspondent who covers the capital full time. #### Who writes TIME's D.C. Brief? Philip Elliott, a senior correspondent at TIME, writes D.C. Brief. #### Is D.C. Brief free? Yes. D.C. Brief is free at time.com/newsletters.  by [Chad de Guzman](https://time.com/author/chad-de-guzman/)  ## Chad de Guzman Reporter Updated: May 29, 2025 3:15 AM UTCPublished: May 28, 2025 6:00 AM UTC  Trump senior advisor and Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk attends a Cabinet meeting at the White House, April 30, 2025. Trump senior advisor and Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk attends a Cabinet meeting at the White House, April 30, 2025. Andrew Harnik—Getty Images  by [Chad de Guzman](https://time.com/author/chad-de-guzman/)  ## Chad de Guzman Reporter Updated: May 29, 2025 3:15 AM UTCPublished: May 28, 2025 6:00 AM UTC Elon Musk, the billionaire tech mogul who had a near-constant presence in the tumultuous early weeks of President Donald Trump’s second-term administration, is stepping down from his official senior adviser role at the White House. “As my scheduled time as a Special Government Employee comes to an end, I would like to thank President @realDonaldTrump for the opportunity to reduce wasteful spending,” Musk [posted](https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1927877957852266518) Wednesday on the social media platform he owns, X. “The @DOGE mission will only strengthen over time as it becomes a way of life throughout the government.” A White House official confirmed Musk’s departure to the [Associated Press](https://apnews.com/article/elon-musk-donald-trump-big-beautiful-bill-aa2bc70b0ebdb219b5dd3e9f8fae03af). Musk’s announcement came a day after an interview clip showed him expressing dissatisfaction with Trump’s legislative priority: a giant tax-and-spending package dubbed the “[big, beautiful bill](https://time.com/7288139/big-beautiful-bill-medicare-medicaid-national-debt/).” Like some Republican lawmakers, Musk criticized the megabill over how it would significantly raise the national debt. In an excerpt released Tuesday night of an exclusive [interview with CBS](https://www.cbsnews.com/news/elon-musk-disappointed-by-trump-big-beautiful-bill-doge/) that will air in full on Sunday, Musk said he was “disappointed to see the massive spending bill, frankly, which increases the budget deficit, not just decreases.” He added that the bill “undermines the work that the DOGE team is doing.” Musk spearheaded the [Department of Government Efficiency](https://time.com/7213409/elon-musk-us-government-trump/) (DOGE) that oversaw sweeping federal layoffs, agency shutdowns, and cancellations of government contracts—some of which have been challenged in court. Musk promised the initiative would save at least $1 trillion in federal spending, and [DOGE’s website](https://doge.gov/savings) claims to have saved taxpayers an estimated $175 billion to date, though critics and factcheckers have [cast doubt](https://www.nytimes.com/2025/02/21/upshot/doge-musk-trump-errors.html) on the veracity of those figures. Trump’s “big, beautiful bill,” however, would boost spending on areas like defense and border security and extend his first-term tax cuts, while imposing restrictions and slashing funding for clean energy, Medicaid, and other programs as well as triggering significant cuts to Medicare. Nonpartisan groups have estimated that the bill would add trillions of dollars to the [national debt](https://time.com/7286837/what-trumps-big-beautiful-bill-would-do-to-the-national-debt/). The bill faced opposition from fiscal conservatives but ultimately [passed in the House](https://time.com/7287722/trump-big-beautiful-bill-house-rules-committee-floor-vote-republicans/) last week and is now before the Senate, where Republicans also hold a slim majority. Asked about Musk’s criticism of the bill, Trump told reporters during a ceremony at the White House on Wednesday that Republicans “had to get it through the House” and will be negotiating the legislation. “I’m not happy about certain aspects of it, but I’m thrilled by other aspects of it,” Trump said. Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson praised DOGE’s work in a [post](https://x.com/SpeakerJohnson/status/1927749395363045819) on X, noting that the House “made sure to build on DOGE’s success within the One Big Beautiful Bill.” “The House is eager and ready to act on DOGE’s findings so we can deliver even more cuts to big government that President Trump wants and the American people demand,” Johnson wrote. He said it would do so by passing a rescissions package Trump is planning to send to Congress to codify some of DOGE’s cuts and by “swiftly” implementing Trump’s 2026 budget through the appropriations process. Amid calls from investors to spend more time focused on his businesses, Musk—who is the CEO of Tesla, SpaceX, and xAI—said in a [Tesla investor call in April](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vs4cfyyMWhQ&t=1s) that he would dial down his “time allocation” to DOGE in May, claiming that “the large slug of work necessary to get the DOGE team in place and working in the government to get the financial house in order is mostly done.” Musk told [CNBC](https://www.cnbc.com/2025/05/20/cnbc-transcript-elon-musk-sits-down-for-secondary-interview-with-cnbcs-david-faber-live-on-cnbc-today-.html) on May 20: “My rough plan on the White House is to be there for a couple days every few weeks. And to be helpful where I can be helpful.” But his regularity in Trump’s orbit has dropped off significantly, sparking rumors of a rift with the President. [Politico](https://www.politico.com/news/2025/05/19/elon-musk-disappears-trump-world-00355313) published an analysis earlier this month that found that whereas Trump used to post almost daily about Musk on Truth Social, he hasn’t mentioned him at all in recent weeks. Also on May 20, Musk said that he would be cutting back his political spending, after sinking more than $250 million into Trump’s 2024 campaign. “I think I’ve done enough,” he told [Bloomberg](https://www.bloomberg.com/features/2025-elon-musk-weekend-interview/). “If I see a reason to do political spending in the future, I will do it. I don’t currently see a reason.” It’s unclear if Musk’s new comments on Trump’s “big, beautiful bill” will influence its trajectory. Several Republican Senators have also raised concerns about the legislative package’s bottom line. On Sunday, Sen. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin told [CNN](https://edition.cnn.com/2025/05/25/politics/video/sotu-gop-senator-threatens-to-stall-spending-bill-over-debt-concerns) that he thinks there are enough Senators who can stop the bill “until the President gets serious about spending reduction and reducing the deficit,” and Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky told [Fox News](https://youtu.be/xfx86heqtF4?t=58): “I support spending cuts, I think the cuts currently in the bill are wimpy and anemic, but I still would support the bill even with wimpy and anemic cuts if they weren’t going to explode the debt. The problem is the math doesn’t add up.” Musk summarized his “personal opinion” in the CBS interview clip, saying: “I think a bill can be big or it can be beautiful. 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