White House denies report on Musk’s departure

A Tesla car dealership stands doused in blue paint following vandalism by activists of the group New Generation on March 31, 2025, in Berlin, Germany. (Photo by Omer Messinger/Getty Images)

The White House has spent this week attempting to discredit a Politico report on Donald Trump’s plan to jettison Elon Musk in the coming weeks, with press secretary Karoline Leavitt calling the news “garbage.”

“Musk and President Trump have both publicly stated that Elon will depart from public service as a special government employee when his incredible work at DOGE is complete,” Leavitt wrote in a post on X. Musk shared Leavitt's post, adding that the report was “fake news.”

In a sit-down interview with Fox News that aired Thursday morning, Vice President J.D. Vance insisted Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency initiative “is not even close to done.” Vance, however, went on to preview what the White House’s relationship with Musk will look like after the billionaire leaves DOGE. “That work is going to continue after Elon leaves,” he said, “but fundamentally, Elon Musk is going to remain a friend and advisor of both me and the president.”

The comments echo what Trump has said publicly about his cabinet secretaries carrying on the work of DOGE after Musk leaves. “I think he’s amazing, but I also think he’s got a big company to run,” the president said on Monday. “So, at some point, he’s going to be going back.”

Politico, citing a trio of “Trump insiders,” reported that Trump and Musk have agreed to end his time with the administration in the near future and relegate Musk to a “supporting role.” From Politico:

Musk’s defenders inside the administration believe that the time is right for a transition, given their view that there’s only so much more he can cut from government agencies without shaving too close to the bone.

But many others say he’s an unpredictable, unmanageable force who has had issues communicating his plans with Cabinet secretaries and through the White House chain of command led by chief of staff Susie Wiles, frequently sending them into a frenzy with unexpected and off-message comments on X, his social-media platform — including sharing unvetted and uncoordinated plans to gut federal agencies.

Musk’s status as a special government employee (SGE) — a designation that stipulates an employment limit of 130 days — is set to expire sometime in May or June. But the White House could use creative accounting to continue Musk’s SGE status past that point.

Last week, Musk said that DOGE “will have accomplished most of the work required to reduce the deficit by $1 trillion” by the time his SGE status expires. (So far, DOGE’s work has resulted in more than 216,000 federal workers and contractors being laid off, according to a Thursday report from Challenger, Gray & Christmas.)

On Wednesday, following the publication of Politico’s report, Tesla’s share price received an immediate boost. Many of the company’s investors have spent weeks complaining that Musk is too distracted in Washington to manage Tesla.

Tesla’s quarterly sales plunge

Tesla released its quarterly report on Wednesday, and the results were worse than what many analysts predicted. Over the first three months of 2025, the EV maker’s deliveries fell by 13% — the largest slump in company history — even as sales of electric cars increased substantially during the same period. The numbers conflict with Musk’s prediction of Tesla raising its sales by 20% to 30% this year.

“The Street and us knew a bad 1Q was coming but this was even worse than expected,” Wedbush Securities’ Dan Ives, a bullish Tesla investor, wrote in a note to clients. “This quarter was an example of the damage Musk is causing Tesla. This continues to be a moment of truth for Musk to navigate this brand tornado crisis and get onto the other side of this dark chapter for Tesla.”

Tesla reported 336,000 deliveries in Q1, 50,000 fewer than the previous quarter. Wall Street had been preparing for a much softer decline, forecasting that Tesla sales would be down in the quarter but only by about 13,000 units.

During Q1, numerous anti-Musk protests were staged outside Tesla facilities, and vandals damaged dealerships and cars. But the company didn’t mention those issues in its report. Instead, Tesla pointed to its Model Y refresh, saying the change halted production at its factories for weeks. Musk, for his part, has acknowledged that his role in the Trump administration is detrimental to Tesla. "This is a very expensive job,” he said on Sunday.

Courtesy of the White House, there was at least one bright spot for Tesla this week. The sweeping tariffs Trump announced on Wednesday could provide Tesla with an advantage over its rivals. While Tesla will certainly suffer from pricier materials, the factories that build its domestically sold cars are located in California and Texas. Its supply chain is also significantly more localized than its competitors, General Motors and Ford.

Also included in Trump’s trade overhaul is a 25% tariff on fully assembled cars. GM and Ford both import many of their vehicles; the former has four plants in Mexico, and the latter has three. Meanwhile, the South Korean automaker Hyundai, whose all-electric Ioniq models compete with Tesla, has warned its dealers to brace for tariff-induced price hikes. Stellantis, which owns Jeep, Dodge, and Chrysler, announced layoffs on Thursday and said it would idle its plants in Mexico and Canada.

Conservative outlet loses subscribers after Musk tweet

Quilette, a right-leaning magazine based in Australia, lost a notable number of paying subscribers after Musk insulted the outlet’s founder on X last month. “We've had a lot of cancelations of subscriptions,” Quillette’s Claire Lehmann told Musk Watch.

The cancelations came after Lehmann, in a post on X, wrote that Musk had leveraged his “wealth for political influence and power” — only to then “claim victimhood when the inevitable backlash engulfs his business interests.”

“You’re an asshole,” Musk wrote in response.

Lehmann, who said Musk suffers from “deranged social media addiction,” has since received emails from subscribers announcing their cancelations and accusing her of pushing “hysterical Trump coverage.” She likened the backlash to Quilette’s experience during the pandemic. “When we defended vaccines… a whole bunch of our audience just freaked out because we weren't being sufficiently heterodox,” Lehmann said. “We had maybe a 20% drop off in revenue, and it took us a couple of years to recover from that. So we've been through this before.”

Rapid DOGE overhaul of SSA code threatens benefits

The Department of Government Efficiency’s planned rapid overhaul of the decades-old code undergirding the Social Security Administration (SSA) could risk collapsing the benefits system that tens of millions of Americans subsist on.

From Wired:

The project is being organized by Elon Musk lieutenant Steve Davis… and aims to migrate all SSA systems off COBOL, one of the first common business-oriented programming languages, and onto a more modern replacement like Java within a scheduled tight timeframe of a few months.

Under any circumstances, a migration of this size and scale would be a massive undertaking, experts tell WIRED, but the expedited deadline runs the risk of obstructing payments to the more than 65 million people in the US currently receiving Social Security benefits.

“Of course, one of the big risks is not underpayment or overpayment per se; [it’s also] not paying someone at all and not knowing about it. The invisible errors and omissions,” an SSA technologist tells WIRED.

The SSA is already suffering from online outages, per the Washington Post, and recipients attempting to reach its call centers have experienced long wait times following the DOGE-led cuts to agency personnel.

DOGE members installed at SEC

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission received a visit from DOGE staffers last week shortly after the confirmation of Paul Atkins, Trump’s pick to lead the regulator. “In compliance with the president’s Executive Order establishing DOGE, the SEC is beginning to onboard members of the team,” a spokesperson for the SEC told Bloomberg. It’s unclear what DOGE intends to cut. The SEC is entirely funded by transaction fees, not U.S. taxpayers.

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Musk Minutes

Catherine Eschbach, a lawyer who represented SpaceX in a still unresolved federal labor dispute, is now in charge of the Labor Department’s civil rights agency. In an email to staff, Eschbach said she intends to downsize the agency and “implement the agenda that the American people elected President Trump to enact.” While working for SpaceX, Eschbach fought an investigation by the National Labor Relations Board over the company’s allegedly illegal dismissal of eight employees. (NPR)

The White House has instructed DOGE staffers to save work-related communications they have sent or received on Signal and other messaging platforms. An optional but popular feature on Signal will cause messages to be deleted automatically. “If you happen to receive work-related messages on your personal device — whether via text, Signal, a personal email address, or otherwise — make sure to capture and transmit those messages to your work device (such as by screenshotting and forwarding),” reads the White House’s new “records retention policy.” (Politico)

Musk visited Langley, Virginia, on Monday to discuss “government efficiency” with CIA Director John Ratcliffe. The following day, Musk expressed outrage after a federal judge blocked the Trump administration from firing CIA staffers who worked on DEI programs. The CIA, in accordance with DOGE’s austerity regimen, has sought to terminate 80 employees this year. (Washington Post)

The Institute of Museum and Library Services, a small agency that is the primary source of federal assistance for U.S. libraries, was effectively shuttered by DOGE on Monday. “Employees were required to turn in all government property before exiting the building, and email accounts are being disabled today. Museums and libraries will no longer be able to contact IMLS staff for updates about the funding they rely upon,” the American Federation of Government Employees wrote in a statement. (Federal News Network)

Through DOGE’s control of both the U.S. Institute of Peace (USIP) and the General Services Administration (GSA), the Musk initiative plans to give itself a $500 million building for free. USIP — a Congressionally funded think tank taken over by DOGE last month — is currently being led by DOGE staffer Nate Cavanaugh, who previously worked for the GSA. Recent court documents indicate that Cavanaugh is in the process of transferring USIP’s building to the GSA. (Wired)

Marko Elez, the DOGE staffer who resigned over racist posts he shared on X but was subsequently rehired, now has access to federal databases housed by the Departments of Labor and Health and Human Services. Last month, an audit found that Elez had violated the Treasury Department’s data-sharing rules by emailing spreadsheets that contained personally identifiable information. (NPR)

The U.S. Office of Personnel Management, a DOGE proxy that has led the initiative’s mass layoffs, plans to skirt the federal government’s hiring freeze. Last week, OPM acting director Chuck Ezell authorized an exemption to the freeze to hire a new driver to transport agency staff. OPM said the hire is related to “ongoing security concerns.” (Reuters)

On Tuesday, Musk indicated that he is willing to take the paternity test requested by conservative influencer Ashley St. Clair, who claims she gave birth to one of Musk’s children last year. “I don’t know if the child is mine or not, but am not against finding out. No court order is needed,” Musk wrote. St. Clair replied by accusing Musk of refusing a paternity test she had requested before the child’s birth. (The Hill)

SpaceX is urging U.S. regulators to curb Apple’s expansion into satellite-based communications. In partnership with Globalstar and MDA Space, Apple is developing a global satellite network to eliminate iPhone dead spots. The project has perturbed SpaceX — with the companies competing for limited spectrum rights — even as Apple plans to use SpaceX rockets to launch its satellites. (Wall Street Journal)

For the first time, the Federal Aviation Administration has approved a U.S. airline to equip its planes with Starlink’s satellite internet service. United Airlines received the certificate to offer Starlink on its Embraer 175s — a small, single-aisle aircraft flown by United’s regional subsidiary. A larger rollout is already in the works, with United signing a deal with SpaceX last year to install Starlink on all of its planes. (Reuters)