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ELON MUSK IS GETTING OUT OF DOGE

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Elon Musk, the world’s richest man, is getting out of DOGE.

He formally announced that he’s leaving the Trump administration – and he’ll be forever seen as not just a billionaire who spent a staggering amount of money to elect Donald Trump and Republicans and a mega MAGA federal government slasher, but as an example of someone who obliterated his personal and business brands. Some see him as a hero who made huge sacrifices to help try and rid the government of waste and corruption. Others see him someone whose efforts didn’t save the government that much money and smelled of corruption.

I saw a perfect manifestation of how the name “Elon Musk” is perceived among many today when I was in Calabasas near Los Angeles yesterday in the upscale Calabasas Common shopping center. A Tesla car had a bumper sticker that read: “Member of the Anti-Elon Musk Tesla Club.”

People who paid big bucks to buy Musk’s once-popular car are now driving a politicized car brand owned by someone who was a big flop overall with the American public and whose name became either a cue to hiss or a joke’s punchline. To drive a Tesla nowmean immediately being defined (even if incorrect) politically. Tesla sales have plummeted 49 percent in Europe as sales of used Tesla’s are booming because they’re being offered at Benny’s Bargain Basement prices.

How could Americans not learn to love a man who said he wants to save western civilization from empathy? Why wouldn’t many Democrats feel that he was their unabashed enemy? The bottom line is that he has suffered from massive overexposure. Many people felt o’d-ed on Elon Musk.

His gleeful slashing of government jobs and firings, jumping up and down at Trump events, brandishing a chain saw, seemingly trying to buy a Supreme Court in Wisconsin which ended in a landslide for the anti-Musk candidate, bringing his son to Trump cabinet meetings, and his corps of college kids who seemed to savor their power didn’t burnish his image. He was reportedly disliked by many in the Trump administration and by some GOPers in Congress.

Musk seemed to aspire to be a THE highly respected businessman who would be perceived by many as a colorful hero. Instead, many perceived him as a rich, powerful, entitled schmo.

So it became official that he’s leaving DOGE and the government. The New York Times:

Elon Musk took a swipe at President Trump’s signature domestic policy legislation, saying it would add to the national deficit. He complained to administration officials about a lucrative deal that went to a rival company to build an artificial-intelligence data center in the Middle East. And he has yet to make good on a $100 million pledge to Trump’s political operation.

Mr. Musk, who once called himself the president’s “first buddy,” is now operating with some distance from Mr. Trump as he says he is ending his government work to spend more time on his companies. Mr. Musk remains on good terms with Mr. Trump, according to White House officials. But he has also made it clear that he is disillusioned with Washington and frustrated with the obstacles he encountered as he upended the federal bureaucracy, raising questions about the strength of the alliance between the president and the world’s richest man.

Mr. Musk was the biggest known political spender in the 2024 election, and he told Mr. Trump’s advisers this year that he would give $100 million to groups controlled by the president’s team before the 2026 midterms. As of this week, the money hasn’t come in yet, according to multiple people familiar with the matter, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe the behind-the-scenes dynamic.

Mr. Musk did not respond to a request for comment. In a post on X, his social media site, on Wednesday night, he officially confirmed for the first time that his stint as a government employee was coming to an end and thanked Mr. Trump “for the opportunity to reduce wasteful spending.”

And:

“The @DOGE mission will only strengthen over time as it becomes a way of life throughout the government,” he added, referring to his Department of Government Efficiency team.

The billionaire’s imprint is still firmly felt in official Washington through that effort, an initiative to drastically cut spending that has deployed staff across the government. But Mr. Musk has said in recent days that he spent too much time focused on politics and has lamented the reputational damage he and his companies have suffered because of his work in the Trump administration.

“I think I probably did spend a bit too much time on politics,” Mr. Musk said in an interview this week with Ars Technica, a tech news outlet.

He added: “It was just relative time allocation that probably was a little too high on the government side, and I’ve reduced that significantly in recent weeks.”

So does this mean Musk will retire from being a political figure and not go back to his previous, unpopular incarnation?

If you believe that, i can sell you Amazon.com for $50.32.