Hi everybody. Welcome back to the Elon Musk
Podcast. This is part of the Stage Zero
News Network. My name is Will Walden.
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Today's topic is Elon Musk leaving Doge.
He just got there, right? And so why is Donald Trump
suddenly treating Elon Musk more like a seasonal intern than the
most powerful man in Washington? It's not about Elon Musk getting
bored with a bureaucracy. The billionaire is going back to
his normal ways, Tesla, SpaceX, Neuralink, Boring Company,
etcetera. It's about whether the most
disruptive figure in American tech history is finally becoming
too volatile for the most disruptive president in modern
history. What went wrong in this
bromance? And did Musk finally step on the
wrong policy landmine and trip over Tesla?
Now, according to three different individuals with
direct knowledge of internal discussions granted a nominee
because still, President Trump, it's Washington.
They don't want to get in trouble.
He's already told cabinet members and close advisors that
Elon Musk will be stepping back from his quasi government role
in the coming weeks. Not quite a resignation though.
He's just kind of stepping, stepping back.
More like a strategic phase out. Musk, once described by allies
as the administration's cheerleader in chief, is
expected to shift into a supportive role rather than
disappear entirely. This is a quiet divorce, and
it's been brewing for weeks, especially after Musk's latest
political misfire. Last Tuesday, a conservative
judge heavily backed by Musk lost a Wisconsin Supreme Court
race by double digits. The debacle didn't just stink
and rang alarm bells for Republicans banking on Musk's
influence to energize that base. Instead, he energized the other
side, the Democrats that came out in full force and destroyed
his side. Now, one month ago, Trump
staffers insisted that Musk was in it for the long haul.
The idea was that Trump might find a creative workaround for
the 130 daytime cap imposed on Musk's status as a special
government employee. But that's solved.
The legally mandated expiration of that role looms large in late
May or early June. Now, for the unfamiliar, special
government employee is Washington's bureaucratic
euphemism for a loophole, allowing Musk to temporarily
sidestep conflict of interest laws while moonlighting as
Trump's Mr. Fixit All. Now that special status is
expiring, and with it, Musk's front row seat to the US
government. Now Trump is said to have
started prepping for this transition over a week before
the Wisconsin election, even signaling the shift in a March
24th cabinet meeting. Now, the internal reasons are
both simple and very complex. Musk's supporters say he's done
what he can trim the fat from bloated agencies.
But a growing group of Trump loyalists argue he's created
more chaos than clarity. Musk's shoot from the hip
approach has tripped up the cabinet's communication flow,
made chief of Staff Susie Wiles job a walking nightmare, and
repeatedly blindsided departments with half baked
policy declarations posted on X. Now his defenders argue that
he's made an impact, especially with Doge, Trump's Frankenstein
attempt to downsize the federal workforce.
But Musk's adversaries are quick to note that Doge's surprise
mandates and unintended cuts, including the now infamous
incident involving Ebola prevention funding, had become
potential landmines. Now, even as Trump publicly
praises Musk, calling him a patriot and a friend of mine
during the same March Cabinet meeting, others inside the White
House see a man growing Berry of Musk's unfiltered methods.
Now, Musk once emailed a mass demand to federal employees
asking them to itemize their daily tasks.
That cabinet had no idea what he was doing.
They didn't know it was coming. And the strain intensified after
Musk funneled millions into that doomed judicial campaign in
Wisconsin. His opponents made the race
about him, and they won. Democrats, fractured as they
are, united in their opposition to Musk's billionaire meddling,
proving that his involvement is as likely to turn voters away as
to win them over. A week before Wisconsin lost,
Trump quietly began backing away from Musk.
This included retracting Representative Elise Stefanik's
nomination for UN ambassador Assigned Trump is trying to
protect his razor thin White House majority heading into
midterms. According to Trump campaign
insiders, Trump is becoming less amused with Elon Musk,
especially when they echo back directly to the president.
Now, when asked by Fox News whether he'd be ready to leave
after his 130 day gig expires, Musk gave a classic mic drop.
He said. I think we'll have accomplished
most of the work required to reduce the deficit by a trillion
dollars within that time frame. OK, if he can get rid of a
trillion dollars in 130 days, imagine what Doge could do over
the course of Trump's four years in office.
I think they could find more money that they could get rid of
a trillion dollars within that time frame.
Maybe they could find more, I don't know.
We'll see. But the White House spokesperson
Harrison Fields tried to study the narrative and said Elon has
been instrumental in executing the president's agenda.
And we'll continue this good work until the president says
otherwise. The press secretary for Trump
went a step further, calling reports of Musk's departure
garbage, but still confirmed he's going to be gone when the
doge work is complete. Now no one is accusing Musk of
sabotaging the administration intentionally.
Even supporters say he has a frustrating inability to work
within structured systems. He makes his own rules.
I mean, he's from the billionaire class.
They just do whatever they want, right?
The most charitable read though. They just said he's not built
for team sports. OK, well, he has teams around
him all the time. He's in charge of everything.
He's the billionaire boss. So they do what he says.
He doesn't play with anybody else.
Now, as one senior ally put it though, they think he's a
genius, but he's a one man Wrecking Ball.
A Wrecking Ball that's starting to swing wildly close to Trump.
Among Musk's recent transgressions, though
torpedoing a year end budget deal between Speaker Mike
Johnson and Democrats. Without Trump's direction,
lawmakers assume Musk had Trump's blessing, throwing the
entire GOP in disarray. Another gem came when Musk
undermined a $500 billion AI partnership by lobbying insults
to Sam Altman, a long time rival and centerpiece of this deal.
Now, in both cases, White House staff were left scrambling to
control the damage. And while Trump publicly stayed
loyal, there were grumbles inside The West Wing.
People wondered if Musk was becoming a net negative.
Then there was Musk's cameo on Joe Rogan, where he casually
dismissed Social Security as the biggest Ponzi scheme of all
time. Now Trump has vowed repeatedly
to protect those benefits though Social Security.
Now, the timing was atrocious. Now, Musk also took to X urging
Trump to ignore court orders blocking parts of Doge just as
the administration was pledging constitutional compliance.
So you can't have it both ways, Elon.
And at some point, Trump aides stepped into Muslim.
But even when Musk reins himself in, there's still whiplash.
There's still lingering effects. Advisors say that Trump has
started to realize that while Musk has been a useful lightning
rod, taking heat for the nastier parts of Trump's agenda, sparks
are starting to catch fire. Elon's taking a lot of bullets
for Trump. A lot.
And Trump knows it. But if it starts to rub off on
him, that's when the honeymoon ends between Trump and Musk.
Now, Musk's peculiar proximity to Trump has long been a sore
spot for other insiders and people that have climbed the
ladder to get that close to Trump and nudged aside by Elon
Musk because he has billions of dollars.
And even before the 2024 election, critics within Trump's
circle grumbled that Musk was practically living at Mar a
Lago, seeking FaceTime with the president like a kid desperate
to meet Santa Claus. Now, many assume Musk wouldn't
want to disrupt his own businesses by entering
government. But they were wrong.
Instead, Musk became a fixture in the White House.
Given an office near The West Wing and unprecedented access to
the president, critics feared it gave Musk unchecked influence.
For a time, it did. But Trump has shown growing
skepticism. He grew a public line after it
emerged that the Pentagon had planned a brief Musk on
classified war scenarios involving China.
And with Musk's business ties in the region, even the hint of a
conflict of interest set off all the alarms.
Now, you shouldn't show it to a businessman, even Elon Musk, and
that's diplomatic code for we don't trust him with state
secrets. Trump also had to do clean up
after that fiasco. And reportedly the president was
pissed not just at the leak, but that he wasn't warned about the
Pentagon's intentions ahead of time.
It was another sign Musk was operating outside official
channels. He just does what he wants and
asks for forgiveness later, kind of like what they do in Silicon
Valley. I worked there for years.
I understand how it works. You just make stuff and if you
break something, you ask for forgiveness the way it works,
especially if you have as much money as Elon Musk does now.
The slow motion unraveling reached a climax during a March
6 Cabinet meeting. Trump made it clear, though
agency heads, not Elon Musk, were now in charge of budget
cuts. That announcement wasn't just
procedural. It was a power shift.
Trump reasserted control, signaling that Musk's
freewheeling influence was no longer untouchable.
Still, at the following week's meetings, Trump gave Musk a
glowing send off in front of the press.
For all the behind the scenes tension, he remains publicly
grateful for Musk's service, even if that gratitude comes
with a farewell. But the facts spark louder than
the flattery. Musk is exiting the daily
operation of Trump's administration not because he
failed at streamlining bureaucracy, but because he
failed at reading the political room.
Whether it was going rogue on budget deals, insulting AI
partners, or sparking Social Security panic, Musk has
revealed a basic incompatibility with the structure of government
work. He's not malicious, he's just
undisciplined. In this type of work, he doesn't
know how to do it. And in Donald Trump's world,
undisciplined can only last so long before it becomes
inconvenient. Now, thank you so much for
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That's it for the day. Everybody take care of
yourselves and each other. And I will see you in the next
one.