Billionaire Elon Musk has announced he is stepping down from his role in the administration of president Donald Trump just days after he criticized one of the president’s legislative bills.
Musk who had been in charge of the Department of Government Efficiency (DoGE), an initiative to shrink the size of US government that saw thousands of federal jobs axed said he was leaving the Trump administration immediately.
In a post on his social media platform X, the world’s richest man thanked Trump for the opportunity to help run the Department of Government Efficiency, known as Doge.
“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,” Musk wrote on X.
“The @DOGE mission will only strengthen over time as it becomes a way of life throughout the government.”
His departure comes a day after he said he was “disappointed” with Trump’s budget bill, which proposes multi-trillion dollar tax breaks and a boost to defence spending stating it would increase the federal deficit which he thinks “undermines the work” of Doge.
The move is not entirely unexpected as Musk announced in late April that he would step back to run his companies again after Doge became a soft target for criticism of Trump’s efforts to shake up Washington.
“Something bad would happen anywhere, and we would get blamed for it even if we had nothing to do with it.” He had said.
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