Trump bids Elon ‘the DoGEfather’ farewell

Sporting a black eye and a shirt with the words “The DoGE Father” on the chest, Elon Musk joined President Trump in the Oval Office Friday afternoon to announce the formal departure from his role in the Department of Government Efficiency. While Musk will no longer be a special government employee and will direct his workday back to his several companies, the world’s richest man will remain a “friend and advisor” to the President when needed.

“Today it’s about a man named Elon, and he’s one of the greatest business leaders and innovators the world has ever produced,” Trump said, opening the press conference. After reading a long list of DoGE findings and their purported savings price tags, the President described DoGE’s efforts as the country’s “most sweeping and consequential government reform program,” adding that the department is “going to be much more substantial with time.”

Trump praised Musk’s business ventures including his space chopsticks, the Boring Company, Starlink, the Twitter-to-X transition and more. “He happens to be a very good person who loves his country,” Trump said after presenting Musk with a gift: a massive gold key.

While the government position’s originally allotted 130 days have drawn to a close, Musk added that the department’s mission will not conclude with his departure. “This is not the end of DoGE, but it is really the beginning,” he said. “I’m confident that over time we will see $1 trillion in savings”: a reduction from his original target of $2 trillion.

Musk added that although he believes colonizing Mars is likely more difficult than eradicating fraud, waste and abuse from the federal government, he described the DoGE process as tedious. “It’s going through millions of line items and saying, does each one make sense?” he said.

President Trump cut in, referencing the anti-Elon movement spurred by his involvement with DoGE, and praised the entrepreneur for withstanding “slings and arrows” from both the media and the American people. A reporter then asked Musk about his black eye, which he said came from playing with his five-year-old X. The child apparently has a more powerful right-hook than Musk was anticipating.

However, Musk and his associates have been taking hits from people with a longer reach than X. “We became the DoGE boogeyman,” Musk said. Since Trump’s inauguration, Musk has seen a violent worldwide movement against Teslas and massive instability in his companies’ share values. Model Ys adorned with “Anti-Elon Tesla Club” stickers now silently drive city streets from LA to DC, and can be bought on Red Bubble for less than $5.

As Matthew Lynn noted Thursday, however, Musk may not be leaving Capitol Hill with his personal finances in as rough a spot as anti-Musk agitators may have hoped.

Reporters at Musk’s Oval Office farewell also asked the President if he was pleased with the “big, beautiful bill,” which passed the House by one vote and is now waiting in the wings in the Senate. Musk had previously expressed dissatisfaction with the bill, which he believes effectively nullify most DoGE cuts. “I think a bill can be big, or it can be beautiful, but I don’t know if it can be both,” Musk told CBS. 

The President defended the bill, maintained it will deliver monumental tax cuts for Americans and added that “some” of the DoGE cuts were put into the bill, “but most of it is going to come later. We’re going to federalize it in Congress,” he said.

Trump also notably offered President Emmanuel Macron of France a word of marital advice after he received a very public slap from his wife. “Make sure everything happens behind closed doors,” the twice-divorced Trump said with a chuckle. The President added that he’d talked to Macron about it earlier: “He’s fine; they’re fine.”