Elon Musk is stepping back from his role in Donald Trump’s administration after Tesla profits plummeted amid increasing tensions between the dysfunctional ‘power couple’. The tech billionaire has revealed he will be spending less time with Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) from next month after his company profits fell by a staggering 71% to $409million (£308million).
Tesla’s revenue also fell 9% to $19.3billion between January and March and the stock has fallen more than 40% this year. Its stock value has been hit by the overall financial market turbulence caused by the global trade war tariffs sparked by competition from Chinese EV maker BYD.
Despite the fall largely being due to Trump’s controversial tariffs, Musk has confirmed he will “drop significantly” his time with Trump from May. He said he will continue to spend a “day or two per week” on government issues “for as long as the president would like me to do so.”
Their relationship hasn’t been always plain sailing, with Musk a previous critic of Trump and a support of the Democrats. But after ploughing in millions of dollars to get Trump back into the White House, and news Musk will be stepping back, how has their relationship faired in recent years?
Long before Donald Trump’s close relationship with Elon Musk, the tech mogul had previously voted for Democratic candidates from 2008 until 2020. He had voted for Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden in 2020.
In 2014, Musk described himself politically as “half Democrat, half Republican” and “somewhere in the middle, socially liberal and fiscally conservative.” He was a supporter of Hillary Clinton’s economic plans in 2016 and was against Donald Trump running for president.
“I feel a bit stronger that he is not the right guy, Musk admitted. “He doesn’t seem to have the sort of character that reflects well on the United States.”
He admitted having to “voted overwhelmingly for Democrats, historically” but in 2022 began supporting Donald Trump.
Elon Musk was a vocal critic of Trump’s controversial “Muslim ban” saying that it wasn’t the ‘best way’ the approach the country’s “challenges”. After posting his thoughts on social media, he quickly deleted them. Instead, he posted: “Regarding gov’t policy, there are often things that happen that many people don’t agree with. This is normal for a functioning democracy.”
In one of their many spats, Donald Trump accused Musk of “lying” following the tech billionaire’s purchase of Twitter. Trump initially praised Musk’s Twitter deal but, in May 22, he took to Truth Social to criticise the “ridiculous” price.
At a rally in Alaska a few months later, he predicted the deal wouldn’t happen and accused him of lying. “He said the other day, ‘Oh, I’ve never voted for a Republican.’ I said, ‘I didn’t know that.’’” Trump said. “He told me he voted for me, so he’s another bull***t artist.”
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Musk shared a clip of the rally on X, saying he “doesn’t hate the man” but that he was “too old” to run for presidency anyway. The president hit back with several critical Truth Social posts, claiming that when Musk came to the White House asking for subsidies for his various projects, he could have made him “drop to his knees and beg” and that he “would have done it”.
Musk took a screengrab of the claim and shared it to X, simply responding: “Lmaooo”. It was then in November 2022 that the two appeared to set aside their online arguments.
In March 2024, there was speculation that Trump, who was in need of more money for his presidential campaign, had met with Musk to help fund him. However, he tweeted: “Just to be super clear, I am not donating money to either candidate for US President”.
But he finally showed his support in July 2024, two days after Trump survived an assassination attempt. He endorsed him for the presidential race, writing on X: “I fully endorse President Trump and hope for his rapid recovery”.
After spending almost $300million (£226million) in the 2024 campaign to help return Trump to the White House, Musk created DOGE and joined the administration with a mission to drastically reduce the size and capability of the federal government. It claims the cuts have led to an estimated $160billion (£120billion) in savings. However, these have been challenged after some of the figures were reported to be misleading.
But now Musk is stepping back from the role after his after his electric vehicle company reported a big drop in profits. Musk said that “now that the major work of establishing Department of Government Efficiency is done,” that he will be “allocating far more of my time to Tesla” starting in May. Musk said he now expects to spend just “a day or two per week on government matters”
Tesla struggled to sell vehicles as it faced angry protests over Musk’s leadership of DOGE, a jobs-cutting group that has divided the country. The Austin, Texas, company reported a 71% drop in profits and a 9% decline in revenue for the first quarter.
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