Elon Musk is resigning as the effective leader of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), sharing his decision through X on Wednesday. An unnamed official from the White House confirmed Musk’s exit to AP.

“As my appointed duration as a Special Government Employee is coming to an end, I want to express my gratitude to President @realDonaldTrump for the chance to cut down on wasteful expenditure,” Musk stated. “The @DOGE mission will only grow stronger over time as it becomes a cultural norm across the government.”

While Musk expressed that his tenure at DOGE was “scheduled,” there was no definitive word on how long he would have been engaged prior to this week’s announcement. Though it was disclosed in February that White House official Amy Gleason had taken on the role of DOGE’s acting administrator earlier, Musk has effectively retained control until now.

Previously, Musk had indicated a desire to scale back his involvement with DOGE during Tesla’s earnings call in April. The billionaire mentioned he would “significantly” reduce the time dedicated to DOGE in May, while shifting more focus to Tesla. However, at the time, he stopped short of announcing his resignation from DOGE, vowing to remain “as long as it’s beneficial” and as long as President Donald Trump wanted him there.

It appears now that Musk feels that time has run its course. Although Trump has not yet made a public comment about Musk’s exit, the announcement comes a day after Musk unexpectedly criticized the president’s tax legislation, claiming it “worsens the budget deficit, not just mitigates it, and undermines the efforts of the DOGE team.”

Despite Musk’s initial assertion that DOGE would slash government spending by at least $2 trillion, the results have fallen considerably short of this goal. In April, he adjusted DOGE’s target down to $150 billion, just a small portion of the cuts initially promised. In the meantime, U.S. government agencies have faced chaos due to DOGE’s initiatives, resulting in over 280,000 government employees being laid off. DOGE has also aimed to completely dismantle several agencies, including the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), which handles foreign aid.

Musk is anticipated to redirect his focus towards his various enterprises, including Tesla, X, and SpaceX. These companies have been publicly struggling in recent months, facing significant reputational harm stemming from Musk’s largely unpopular political engagements.

Tesla sales have drastically declined worldwide, with the electric vehicle manufacturer reporting a 71 percent decrease in profit during Q1 2025. The social media platform X is experiencing similar issues, losing millions of users as advertisers departed, although Musk refuted reports suggesting he told employees they were “barely breaking even.” SpaceX, while not suffering as severely, faced an unfortunate setback with the explosion of its latest Starship test flight on Tuesday, marking the company’s third consecutive “rapid unscheduled disassembly.”

Speaking to Ars Technica before both SpaceX’s launch and his departure from DOGE, Musk recognized that he had been devoting excessive time to politics instead of managing his companies.

“I think I probably did dedicate a bit too much time to politics, [though] it’s less than people would assume,” noted Musk. “It’s not like I left the companies. It was merely a relative time allocation that probably leaned a bit too high on the government aspect, and I’ve significantly reduced that in recent weeks.”