Elon Musk says DOGE will continue and is a ‘way of life’ as he makes his White House exit
President Donald Trump and Elon Musk said that the Department of Government Efficiency, responsible for upheaval within the federal workforce in Philadelphia and nationwide, is here to stay.
In the four months that Elon Musk has officially led the Department of Government Efficiency, the agency tasked with slashing bureaucracy has inspired mass layoffs, lacerated federal grants, and encouraged employees to shift away from government work.
And now, in a way, Musk is taking his own advice.
Musk’s stint as a special government employee leading DOGE is coming to an end as he retrains much of his focus on his companies, including Tesla. Though Musk is taking a step back from the political limelight, he said Friday during a joint news conference with President Donald Trump in the Oval Office that he’ll continue to be a “friend and adviser” to the president and that the principles of DOGE will continue.
“I expect to continue to provide advice, whenever the president would like advice,” Musk, the richest man in the world, told reporters Friday as he stood by Trump’s side, clad in a black shirt that read “The Dogefather.”
“I hope so,” Trump replied, sitting at the Resolute Desk.
It’s unclear who, if anyone, will replace Musk as DOGE’s leader, but many of the billionaire’s employees at the commission will stay, Trump said. The president established DOGE via executive order on his first day in office as a “temporary organization” charged with completing its work by July 4, 2026.
Trump promised Friday that DOGE’s cuts will be “permanent” and that the government will be “stopping much more of the waste in months to come.” He also touted Musk’s work, including monetary cuts and “bureaucrats” leaving the federal workforce, and said that the results of Musk’s efforts will be apparent to the public “long into the future.”
Musk’s reign over DOGE spurred significant upheaval in the federal government. In the Philadelphia area, workers were laid off or, like other employees nationwide, incentivized to resign in the near future. There were also DOGE-inspired funding cuts locally. A West Philly nonprofit lost $700,000 in EPA funding, health programs were cut by $2 million in Camden County, and AmeriCorps recently lost $10.2 million for projects in Philadelphia. Those actions have made Musk a political lightning rod for Democrats as Republicans continue to defend him.
“He had to go through the slings and the arrows, which is a shame, because he’s an incredible patriot,” Trump said Friday before presenting Musk with a large, golden commemorative key.
Musk said DOGE became the “boogeyman” for any government cuts, even if the group wasn’t involved.
But the commission is still far short of its goal for federal cuts ($1 trillion by Sept. 30) and has overstated its progress, the New York Times reported last month. On Friday, Musk estimated the 2025 fiscal year cuts by DOGE to be more than $160 billion and “climbing.”
Musk told reporters Friday that he still believes that “over time” DOGE will get to a trillion dollars in government cuts.
The billionaire’s role in DOGE allowed him to become a powerful player in Trump’s inner circle, after Musk campaigned relentlessly for Trump in Pennsylvania, a crucial battleground state in the 2024 presidential election. Musk poured millions of dollars into recruiting voters in Pennsylvania, and his conservative political action committee, America PAC, dished out cash prizes to swing state voters and hosted town halls across the Keystone State.
Some of those monetary giveaways have caused confusion among Pennsylvania voters, with Pennsylvanians telling The Inquirer that they received unsolicited $100 checks from what appeared to be a Musk-owned holding company, while others alleged in lawsuits that they never received the payments owed to them.
Musk has said he’s taking a step back from his political work, too, telling Bloomberg News at the Qatar Economic Forum recently that he plans to do “a lot less” political spending in the future. The billionaire had signaled late last year that he could target progressive Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner in this month’s primary election. But Musk’s big bucks did not get involved and Krasner handily won — and is now poised for reelection in November.
Musk told reporters Friday that his stepping back does not mark the end of DOGE, but rather the beginning. He said the DOGE team “will only grow stronger.” Then, he likened DOGE to the Buddhist religion.
“It’s like a way of life,” Musk said.