Here’s why Elon Musk is leaving the Trump administration

After making the headlines over his plans to leave the administration of US President Donald Trump, Elon Musk has explained how he had reached this decision and what were the reasons behind it – and they mostly concern one of Trump’s recent policies.

Indeed, Musk announced the plan to leave his role as a special government employee in the Trump administration and thanked the president for the opportunity to help run the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), in a post shared on his X profile on May 29.

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.

The @DOGE mission will only strengthen over time as it becomes a way of life throughout the government.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 29, 2025

Why Elon Musk is leaving

As it happens, the decision arrived shortly after the tech mogul expressed his disappointment with one of Trump’s signature policies, which the US president referred to as his “big, beautiful bill” and aims to incorporate multi-trillion dollar tax breaks, as well as increase defense spending.

Specifically, in his interview with CBS News, Musk explained that:

“I was disappointed to see the massive spending bill, frankly, which increases the budget deficit, not decreases it, and undermines the work that the DOGE team is doing. (…) I think a bill can be big or it can be beautiful, but I don’t know if it could be both. My personal opinion.”

Notably, the Tesla CEO had initially promised to cut “at least $2 trillion” from the federal government budget, before halving this target, and then reducing it to $150 billion. As a result of DOGE’s policies, about 260,000 out of the 2.3 million federal civilian workers have lost their jobs or accepted redundancy deals.

Meanwhile, when reporters in the Oval Office asked him to comment on Musk’s criticism, Trump acknowledged he was “not happy about certain aspects” of the bill, while being “thrilled” with others, such as tax cuts, although he didn’t directly address Musk’s remarks. As he said,“It’s the big, beautiful bill. And it’s beautiful because of all the things we have.”

Elsewhere, Musk has faced accusations of using the information he has access to in government agencies as the head of DOGE to train his artificial intelligence (AI) company’s models, amid a crackdown on the agencies in a bid to curb waste of government funds.