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Musk Will Be Leaving Trump Soon — But You’re Still Paying For The Party
Tesla’s worst quarter since 2022 might be the least of it
Trump leaned into the microphone and “Elon, I want to thank you — I know you’ve been through a lot,” mentioning death threats and the spate of vandalism directed at the cars built. The crowd scoffed. Musk smiled back. “He’s a patriot,” Trump said. “A friend of mine.”
It was a performance, but not a lie.
What started with a has translated in Musk spending months helping Trump dismantle the government from the inside — , , , and, why not, calling “a Ponzi scheme.”
He’s been acting, officially, as a “special government employee” leading the advisory Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), which has been tasked with cutting US government jobs and other spending. His “special” label skirts ethics rules and lets him operate inside government for up to 130 working days, a term that, depending on how the administration chooses to log those days, could run out at the end of May or the beginning of June.
That clock is now running out. And the White House knows it.