It's becoming increasingly apparent that billionaire Elon Musk wasn't some great mastermind, puppeting president Donald Trump from the shadows.
In reality, the mercurial CEO has become a surprisingly reviled fixture on Capitol Hill, getting into screaming matches and frequently losing his composure, while also making "annoying" jokes and being ridiculed by the public.
The walls started coming down earlier this year, when Musk lost his temper with Trump's treasury secretary Scott Bessent, shouting obscenities at him in the halls of the West Wing, as The Atlantic reports. The pair were fighting over who would get to pick the incoming leader of the Internal Revenue Service, highlighting tensions over how an unelected official — whose job was nominally to oversee the gutting of federal agencies — was looking to shoehorn himself into even more impactful decisions that directly affected his own wealth and business interests.
As Musk's chaotic and destructive time at the White House comes to an end, the billionaire has found himself more isolated than ever after burning bridge after bridge. His slashing of budgets has encountered major headwinds, with cabinet members blocking many of his so-called Department of Government Efficiency's moves.
He has attracted copious amounts of bad press, from performing Nazi salutes at Trump's inauguration celebration earlier this year, to being accused of handing his businesses cushy government contracts in seemingly astronomical conflicts of interest.
In a childishly standoffish appearance at Bloomberg's Qatar Economic Forum this week, he lashed out at the interviewer, visibly struggling to coherently talk about what DOGE actually achieved — besides potentially costing the government more than it saves.
But at long last, endless months of sparring and making himself unpopular in Washington, DC, are seemingly coming to a close.
"I think I've done enough," he said during the interview. "Well, if I see a reason to do political spending in the future, I will do it," he added. "I don't currently see a reason."
However, it's unlikely his reportedly grating presence will be missed in the West Wing.
"He’s finished, done, gone," an anonymous GOP official told Politico this week. "He polls terrible. People hate him."
"The public supported the effort to end wasteful Washington spending, but they did not support the way that it was done," GOP pollster Frank Luntz added. "His mission to cut the waste from Washington was certainly helpful, but the language he used wasn’t."
"We kicked him out of town," American Federation of Government Employees general counsel Rushab Sanghvi told The Atlantic. "If he had stayed in the shadows and done his stuff, who knows how bad it would have been? But no one likes the guy."
Last month, Rolling Stone reported on Musk's transformation into a laughing stock, with staffers nicknaming him "crazy Uncle Elon."
"I have been in the same room with Elon, and he always tries to be funny," a senior Trump administration official told the magazine. "And he’s not funny. Like, at all."
"I keep using the word ‘annoying’; a lot of people who have to deal with him do," the source added. "But the word doesn’t do the situation justice."
Musk's desperate attempts to turn the federal government into a poorly run, profit-maximizing Silicon Valley startup that "moves fast and breaks things" have had little to show.
"How many people were fired because they didn’t send in their three things a week or whatever the fuck it was?" one Trump advisor told The Atlantic, referring to Musk's ultimately pointless request to have each government staffer send an email listing their accomplishments each week. "I think that everyone is ready to move on from this part of the administration."
Even Musk appears to be aware that DOGE has been a dismal failure, telling reporters earlier this month that "we haven't been as effective as I'd like."
"So it’s, like, it’s not easy. This is — this is a way to make a lot of enemies and not that many friends," he added.
Musk's presence, particularly during cabinet meetings, quickly became a punchline, as he adorned himself with ridiculous hats that read things like "Gulf of America."
It was hard to take him seriously, with Musk putting on his best class clown impression by donning two hats at a time in April.
"Well, Mr. President, you know they say I wear a lot of hats!" Musk told Trump at the time. "It’s true, even my hat has a hat."
The line prompted only subdued laughter.
Share This Article