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The divorce is official: Elon Musk, who briefly held a special role within the US government, is no longer mincing his words. On the eve of his departure, he is lashing out at Donald Trump, blaming him for the failure of his government efficiency reform initiative.
What once looked like an alliance of titans – a billionaire entrepreneur and a president with shared economic views – is now turning into a settling of scores. Elon Musk has openly criticised Donald Trump’s major tax reform, accusing him of sabotaging his team’s efforts and compromising public finances.
Clearly expressed disappointment
In an interview broadcast on CBS, Elon Musk made no secret of his disappointment and anger. “I was disappointed to see this massive spending bill that increases the budget deficit instead of reducing it, and undermines the work that the Doge team is doing,” he said. This was a thinly veiled attack on Donald Trump, whose tax reform plan, described as “great, unique and magnificent”, has just passed a major milestone in Congress.
As a reminder, Elon Musk was appointed to head the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), a short-lived body that was supposed to rethink how the federal administration works. But his term of office, limited to 130 days, comes to an end on 28 May. And the record is far from glorious.
A personal failure… blamed on Trump
Musk doesn’t beat around the bush: in his view, the failure of his mission is directly linked to Donald Trump’s choices. The budget reform adopted weakens, in his words, all the efforts undertaken by the DOGE. Worse still, it adds to the US deficit, which is not expected to fall below 6% until at least 2030.
Asked whether a bill can be both “big and beautiful”, as Trump claims, Musk replies with icy irony: “I think a bill can be big or beautiful… but I don’t know if it can be both. That’s my personal opinion.”
Elon Musk advocates an agile, sober and technologically efficient state. He sees the explosion in public spending as a betrayal of these principles. Trump, on the other hand, seems to favour spectacular and often costly projects, without necessarily guaranteeing their long-term effectiveness. Even within the Republican camp, criticism is rife. Senators Ron Johnson and Rand Paul have also expressed serious doubts about this tax reform. But Musk, as a figure from outside the traditional political sphere, lends strong symbolic weight to this protest.
Musk may be stepping down from his official role in the US government, but that doesn’t mean he’s leaving the public eye. He has already announced his return to full-time work at Tesla, X and SpaceX, and continues to influence political and economic debates.
