Elon Musk Exits Trump Administration a Day After Criticizing ‘Big Beautiful’ Spending Bill

Elon Musk, who has been one of Donald Trump‘s closest and most influential allies, has exited the administration 128 days into the President’s second term.

On Wednesday, Musk took to his own social media platform X to share the news.

“As my scheduled time as a Special Government Employee comes to an end, I would like to thank President for the opportunity to reduce wasteful spending,” Musk wrote. “The
mission will only strengthen over time as it becomes a way of life throughout the government.”

AP confirmed Musk’s exit with a White House staffer who asked to remain anonymous.

Musk’s departure from the Trump administration comes just one day after the Tesla founder criticized Trump’s “big, beautiful bill,” which seeks to create major tax breaks for the wealthy, while also allocating more funds to military spending and immigration issues. This would all come at the cost of slashing clean energy, nutrition, education and health programs.

“I was disappointed to see the massive spending bill, frankly, which increases the budget deficit, not just decreases it,” Musk told CBS’s “Sunday Morning.” He went on to say that the bill “undermines the work” of his Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, adding that the proposed legislation “can be big or it could be beautiful. But I don’t know if it could be both.”

Musk spent more than $250 million on Trump’s campaign and joined within the first days of his second term as a “special government employee” tasked with slashing excessive government spending. When he joined the administration, he set forth to reduce the federal budget by $1 trillion, a goal he fell well short of, according to the New York Times.