The Blubber

Elon Musk announced Wednesday evening that his tenure as a "special government employee" under the Trump administration is coming to a close.

“As my scheduled time as a Special Government Employee comes to an end, I would like to thank President [Trump] for the opportunity to reduce wasteful spending,” Musk wrote in a post on X. He added that the mission of his Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) “will only strengthen over time as it becomes a way of life throughout the government.”

According to a White House official, Musk will begin the offboarding process from his role Wednesday night.

During his time leading DOGE, Musk has driven major changes across the federal government—overseeing deep staff cuts at nearly every agency and canceling billions of dollars in federal contracts. He has claimed these efforts have resulted in about $160 billion in savings. However, some watchdogs have challenged those numbers, noting errors in the reported figures and estimating that the cuts could actually cost the government $135 billion when factoring in lost productivity and the costs of furloughs and rehiring.

In February, the White House confirmed Musk’s status as a “special government employee,” or SGE—a classification that allowed him to work within the executive branch while operating under different ethics rules than full-time federal employees.

SGEs, however, are limited to 130 working days within a 12-month period. This Friday, May 30, marks 130 days since President Trump began his second term and Musk officially joined the DOGE effort.

Musk’s announcement comes just a day after he criticized the recent GOP-backed budget bill in an interview on “CBS Sunday Morning.” The bill, strongly supported by President Trump and dubbed the “big, beautiful bill,” drew criticism from Musk for its spending increases.

“I was disappointed to see the massive spending bill, frankly, which increases the budget deficit—not reduces it—and undermines the work that the DOGE team is doing,” Musk told CBS’s David Pogue in the exclusive segment.

Back in April, Musk had hinted at scaling back his gover