Elon Musk is leaving DC not with a bang but a whimper…and, it appears, with some new enemies in the White House.
In an interview that aired Sunday on CBS, days after he announced he was departing DOGE, Musk insisted he has never been in lockstep with the Trump administration, despite being President Donald Trump’s self-proclaimed “first buddy.”
“It’s not like I agree with everything the administration does,” Musk said on CBS News’ Sunday Morning. “So it’s like, I mean, I agree with much of what the administration does. But we have differences of opinion. You know, there are things that I don’t entirely agree with.”
“But it’s difficult for me to bring that up in an interview,” Musk continued, “because then it creates a bone of contention. So then, I’m a little stuck in a bind, where I’m like, well, I don’t wanna, you know, speak up against the administration, but I also don’t wanna take responsibility for everything this administration’s doing.”
Less than 24 hours before Elon Musk announced that his time as a Special Government Employee was coming to a close, Musk expressed some “differences of opinion” with the Trump administration in an interview with CBS Sunday Morning correspondent David Pogue.
“It’s difficult for… pic.twitter.com/X18M36YFlm
— CBS Sunday Morning
(@CBSSunday) May 29, 2025
So what, exactly, didn’t Musk like? DOGE becoming the boogeyman of the administration, for one thing: “DOGE became the whipping boy for everything,” the world’s richest man complained. “If there was some cut, real or imagined, everyone would blame DOGE.” (In fact, poll after poll showed most Americans disliked DOGE, at least in part due to its lack of accountability and its slash-and-burn approach to critical government functions and personnel. That included killing more than two dozen grants administered by the Department of Labor that supported getting more women into fields including construction and manufacturing; dismantling USAID, the international humanitarian aid agency; impeding scientific research; and firing scores of federal workers, just to name a few examples.)
Musk said he was also “disappointed” to see the “massive spending bill,” which was passed by the Republican House last month and is now being debated in the Senate. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimates the bill would add $3.8 trillion to the national debt over the next decade—a figure that would essentially render DOGE’s purported government savings of $175 billion pointless. Musk alleged that the bill “undermines the work that the DOGE team is doing,” adding, “I actually thought that, when this ‘big, beautiful bill’ came along, it’d be like, everything he’s done on DOGE gets wiped out in the first year.”
“I think a bill can be big or it could be beautiful. But I don’t know if it could be both.”
Tech billionaire Elon Musk tells CBS Sunday Morning’s @Pogue he was “disappointed” to see the Trump-backed “big beautiful” spending bill, which passed in the House last week.
Musk said… pic.twitter.com/LUcuTaNYrs
— CBS Sunday Morning
Trump’s allies scrambled to counter Musk’s critiques on the Sunday shows. On NBC’s Meet the Press, House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) told host Kristen Welker he “sent a long text message to my good friend, Elon Musk, after he made those comments the other day,” adding that Musk and others “are missing…the tremendous and historic level of spending cuts that are also in the same package.” (Those “cuts” include the largest-ever proposed cuts to Medicaid, which could lead to 8 million people losing coverage. The cuts would target women’s health services offered by Planned Parenthood, coverage for abortions in Affordable Care Act plans, and gender-affirming care for all Medicaid patients, including transgender adults.) On CNN’s State of the Union, White House Budget Director Russ Vought claimed: “I love Elon. This bill doesn’t increase the deficit or hurt the debt,” before critiquing the CBO’s estimate.
“I love Elon. This bill doesn’t increase the deficit or hurt the debt.”
White House Budget Director @RussVought47 responds to criticism from Elon Musk that President Trump’s tax and spending cut bill will make deficits worse. pic.twitter.com/dHt69IJGWA
— State of the Union (@CNNSOTU) June 1, 2025
There have been signs of Musk’s discontent prior to the CBS interview: for example, the time that he went after Peter Navarro, Trump’s top tariff guy, saying, “He ain’t built shit,” as I previously wrote. (In the CBS interview, when asked if Trump’s tariffs would affect his businesses, Musk demurred, replying, “Tariffs always affect things a little bit.”) But Trump seems to think Musk wil be back before long: “Elon’s really not leaving,” he told reporters in the Oval Office on Friday, as Musk stood nearby with a black eye he claimed his son gave him. “He’s going to be back and forth, I think. I have a feeling.”
But Musk seems more tepid about returning to the White House amid a myriad of business problems, including tanking Tesla sales and setbacks at his aerospace company Space X—not to mention Trump’s withdrawal of Musk ally Jared Isaacman’s nomination to head NASA, as well as leaked allegations about Musk’s drug use. “DOGE is gonna continue, just as a way of life,” he told CBS. “I will have some participation in that, but as I’ve said publicly, my focus has to be on the companies at this point.” Polling suggests that, for most Americans, that’s music to their ears.
