Francis Chung/Pool/CNP/Zuma
On Friday, Elon Musk once again pledged to depart his role at DOGE, taking with him his bad personality, weird public behavior, complicated family life, troubled businesses, alleged regular illegal drug use, compulsive social media habits, exploding rockets, messianic conviction that he control all of earth’s resources so as to colonize Mars, and a remarkably poor track record in his brief life as a quasi-public servant. He leaves behind the incredible destruction DOGE has wrought, and of course, DOGE itself, which will continue its work, as Project 2025 architect and Office of Management and Budget director Russell Vought reportedly floats making its cuts permanent without the approval of Congress.
Even Trump says Musk is “really not leaving.”
But it would be a mistake to think that Musk’s grip on the government is lessening; beyond his continued relationship with the Trump administration, Musk’s companies will still have billions in lucrative and influential federal contracts. And as his recent travel shows, there are clear signs that Musk is also using his relationship with President Trump to pursue business, especially in the Middle East.
To be sure, after embarking on a hugely successful quest to make the lives of ordinary Americans a lot worse, Musk does seem to be pulling back on his obsessive political involvement. He has said that his focus from here on will be his companies, even though DOGE, as he put it, will continue “as a way of life.” He’s also said he plans to cut his political spending; he invested heavily in March’s Wisconsin Supreme court race, an effort which failed miserably, as did his earlier attempts to influence German voters to put the ultra-right AfD party in power.
But there are also clear indications that Musk will continue trying to influence politics. For one, he and Trump immediately gave the game away in their Friday Oval Office press conference, where Trump said that Musk is “really not leaving,” adding, “He’s going to be back and forth, I think. I have a feeling.” A person characterized as a “senior administration official” told CBS News that “Musk left on good terms and is still friends with the president. This isn’t a separation, but just a return to the private sector for Musk. He will continue to be a friend to the president, and we can characterize that as an ‘adviser.’” Another key data point: Katie Miller, the wife of White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller, has reportedly left DOGE to work elsewhere for Musk full-time, suggesting a continued link between Musk and the upper reaches of the administration.
Beyond DOGE, Musk’s companies also still have heavy ties to DC, with what the Washington Post estimated in February amounts to about $38 billion in federal government funding. That multi-pronged business relationship is only going to grow stronger; as Ars Technica wrote in April, almost every recent military launch contract has gone to SpaceX.
Musk also recently attended investment forums in Qatar and Saudi Arabia, which coincided with Trump’s visits to those countries. Musk is making an aggressive push in Saudi Arabia, where Starlink was just approved and where he’s said he plans to bring Tesla’s self-driving cars and Optimus “humanoid robots,” which he said he’d shown to Trump and Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman.
Musk’s attempts to meddle in governments, domestic and foreign, don’t always work: the Wall Street Journal reported last week that he tried to scuttle a deal to build a huge AI data center in the United Arab Emirates because it will be led by OpenAI and Musk’s arch-rival Sam Altman, and won’t include his own AI company, xAI. But CNBC reported that the announcement “was delayed by several days as stakeholders, including the White House, dealt with blowback from Musk.”
The image of a major international business negotiation momentarily foundering out of fear that Musk might get mad says it all. Even if his time as Trump’s “first buddy” has drawn to a close, Musk will still be able to use his clearly continuing influence on the federal government and American foreign policy to draw more cash and attention to his businesses—and to try to reshape global business and politics to his will.
