Elon Musk has got people wondering about how solid his relationship with Donald Trump is with his latest comments about his future political spending.

Billionaire Elon Musk was one of the most outspoken supporters of Donald Trump’s bid to return to the White House and reportedly spent more than $250m in support of Trump’s campaign.

Since returning to the White House, both figures have repeatedly praised one another for their work and this saw Musk land himself a role in the newly formed Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).

A few weeks ago, however, Musk announced that he would be stepping back from this and focusing more on his many businesses.

Elon Musk was one of Trump’s most prominent supporters (Live Now from Fox)

However, rumors have continued to persist that Musk is stepping away due to a strained relationship with Trump and these have only increased in recent weeks.

Regarding political spending, while speaking virtually at the Qatar Economic Forum on Tuesday (May 20), Musk explained he wouldn’t be dabbling in it in the future.

Musk said: “I think, in terms of political spending, I am going to do a lot less in the future.”

When pressed on why that is, Musk simply replied that he had ‘done enough’.

He was then asked whether the backlash he has received was part of the reason, and Musk sort of sidestepped the question and replied: “Well, if I see a reason for political spending in the future I will do it, I don’t currently see a reason.”

Videos of this snippet from the conversation have begun to spread on social media and viewers have chimed in with their own theories on what could be the reason behind this.

Some suggested Musk wanted to take a step back in order to focus more on his businesses as his union with Trump hadn’t been the success he was hoping for.

Most interestingly, Trump has appeared to stop mentioning Musk on his social media posts, going from an average of four times per week in February to once since the start of April, further fueling rumors their relationship is floundering.

One Twitter user said: “Trump has realized people hate Musk and he’s become a liability. The DOGE program has become a joke and a failure. It’s time for Elon to go under the bus.”

While another argued: “Musks board sent him a clear message. He needs to focus on his business. He’s had his fun playing president.”

Social media users have their own theories about why Musk will be reducing his political spending(Jeff Bottari/Zuffa LLC)

A third noted: “He’s stepping back because his association with MAGA proved toxic to his brand. But we won’t forget.”

However, others have insisted the billionaire is simply choosing to reroute his focus after getting all that he wanted out of his support of Trump.

Another user wrote: “Musk got everything he wanted from his foray into politics. Now he’s just deciding what to do with it all. If he realizes he missed a server, he’ll be back.”

With another adding: “No, he had been pretty clear on his role and that he wouldn’t be involved long. Trump won and DOGE was instituted, those were his goals, so now he’s stepped aside. People just keep trying to lie and spin it into something more to create a narrative.”

A shocking report has ‘revealed’ just what White House staff really think of Elon Musk.

It’s no secret that the Tesla and SpaceX boss isn’t particularly popular with the general public, nor the federal workforce.

Agitation for the billionaire businessman has been boiling over ever since he declared himself Donald Trump‘s ‘First Buddy’ and was picked to head the cost-cutting Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) – and with unnerving enthusiasm.

Since January, Musk has brought Tesla Cybertrucks to the White House front lawn and at one point sported a literal chainsaw as a metaphor for his unapologetic approach, which has slashed budgets, axed jobs and, according to a new report, severed friendships.

He’s been quite enthusiastic about his post (SAUL LOEB/AFP via Getty Images)

A new bombshell report by The Atlantic based on the confessions of 14 anonymous White House confidants has lifted the lid on just what those in the upper order of the Trump administration really think of him.

Here’s everything of note:

Musk’s clash with Scott Bessent

“F*** you!”, rang through the West Wing last month, not once but three times, and apparently within earshot of the POTUS himself.

Treasury Secretary, Scott Bessent, launched his expletive-filled rant after Musk picked a new IRS leader behind his back.

However, the report reveals the feud was just one of many between Musk and Trump’s top dogs.

Bessent recently screamed at him (Stefani Reynolds/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

The ultimatum email

In February, Musk pinged off an email to the entire federal workforce one weekend with the demand to list five tasks they’d completed that week – or don’t bother coming to work.

“How many people were fired because they didn’t send in their three things a week or whatever the f*** it was?” an anonymous Trump adviser told the outlet. “I think that everyone is ready to move on from this part of the administration.”

‘Chaos’ in workforce cuts

High up on the list of Musk’s most unpopular moves has been his efforts to slash the federal workforce as well as grants, contracts and leases, which he claimed saved $170 billion.

However, that figure has shifted due to program reinstatements and errors, The Atlantic adds, and while the 4.5-million-strong workforce has been chiselled down by tens of thousands, some of those too are up in the air because of court orders.

According to one adviser, Musk performed the cuts in a ‘haphazard’ way that caused chaos.

Musk said he was merely ‘tech support’ for the president (JIM WATSON/AFP via Getty Images)

It was possibly all for nothing too, or at least very little, as it’s now transpired that Musk failed to find anything close to the 13-figure saving he’d initially promised.

The 53-year-old appeared to admit this when his revised goal of $1 trillion, down from the $2 trillion target, was proving ‘really, really difficult’ to meet.

“It’s not easy,” he added. “This is—this is a way to make a lot of enemies and not that many friends.”

Questions over actual efficiency

Ayushi Roy, a former technologist at the General Services Administration, suggested that while Musk did cut the workforce – and traumatized those who have managed to cling on – he didn’t make anything more efficient.

She said: “I am waiting for them to actually deliver something. Right now they have just been deleting things. They haven’t added any value.

“If it is just us hatcheting things instead of improving or even replacing them, the goal, to me, is not actually about improving efficiency.”

Calkins suggested Musk’s ‘Silicon Valley’ approach isn’t appropriate for government (Marvin Joseph/The Washington Post via Getty Images)

‘Silicon Valley mindset’

Matt Calkins, the CEO of a Virginia-based software company, Appian, who has also worked within the federal government for more than 20 years, said Musk’s downfall has been approaching the task with the wrong mindset.

“He comes in with his idealism and his Silicon Valley playbook, and a few interesting things happened. Does the ‘move fast and break things’ model work in Washington? Not really,” Calkins said.

‘Killing children’ in cuts to foreign aid

Although it was actually fellow billionaire and philanthropist, Bill Gates, the co-founder of Microsoft, who publicly condemned Musk as ‘the world’s richest man killing the world’s poorest children,’ the tech mogul faced severe backlash when DOGE axed foreign aid.

Musk said USAID (United States Agency for International Development), that has been the largest humanitarian operator around the globe, was a ‘criminal organization’ and that it was ‘time for it to die‘.

Bill Gates didn’t hold back in his criticism of Musk for the cuts to foreign aid (Bruce Glikas/WireImage)

In line with this assault, DOGE also cut The Inter-American Foundation, an independent US foreign assistance agency, from 48 employees to the ‘statutory minimum’ of just one.

Apparently, Secretary of State Marco Rubio wasn’t happy with the dissolution of foreign aid or the cut back to the Inter-American Foundation.

The Atlantic reports Musk had challenged Rubio for not reducing his staff – and the statesman stood his ground.

“That was one of the turning points for Trump and Marco, where Trump realized Marco had a little spine,” a Trump ally said.

‘Ambush’ of concerns from veterans to aviation safety

At one point, Musk was reportedly ‘ambushed’ by Rubio as well as Veterans Affairs Secretary Doug Collins, and Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy.

According to the report, Trump had arranged the meeting in March, stating they will ‘have at it’ after the advisors were reportedly angry with Musk for overstepping and, as one adviser said, essentially ‘setting [agencies] on fire.’

The adviser explained: “[Musk] miscalculated his ability to act just completely autonomously. He had some missteps in all of these agencies, which would have been fine because everyone acknowledges that when you’re moving fast and breaking things, not everything is going to go right.

Marco Rubio is another Trump ally that apparently hasn’t been happy with Musk’s moves (Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images)

“But it’s different when you do that and you don’t even have the buy-in of the agency you’re setting on fire.”

Before his spat with Rubio, Duffy had also accused Musk of trying to lay off air traffic controllers at a time when the US was reeling from ‘multiple plane crashes’.

Meanwhile, Collins pulled up the fact Musk’s cuts threaten thousands of veterans, a core of Trump’s voter base.

Trump’s tariffs

A turning point appeared to come from Trump’s tariffs as the billionaire called for a ‘zero-tariff situation’, while Tesla voiced concerns about counter-tariffs affecting business.

Hammering the nail in the coffin, Musk also called Trump’s top trade adviser, Peter Navarro, ‘dumber than a sack of bricks’.

Trump later confirmed that Musk would not be attending a Pentagon briefing about a potential war with China based on his apparent conflict of interest.

Steve Bannon said this Pentagon spat changed everything, writing: “You could feel it, everything changed, the fever had been broken.”

Trump and Musk’s friendship is still going strong (Andrew Harnik/Getty Images)

‘No one likes the guy’

Rushab Sanghvi, the general counsel for the American Federation of Government Employees, is another who is celebrating Musk’s soon departure, saying: “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.”

The end of Musk in DOGE?

As a ‘special government employee,’ Musk’s time at the head of DOGE was always limited to 130 days.

Now, it appears time is up with Musk himself telling reporters that he’s been cutting down on DOGE issues to a few days per week, then to ‘every other week’ and, most recently, stating: “I think I’ve done enough.”

And if this report is to be believed, many of Trump’s allies might just be breathing a sigh of relief about that.

Elon Musk has long been a supporter of Donald Trump but may be stepping down from his current role in the administration sooner than most people expected.

Donald Trump has told his inner circles, including members of his cabinet that his ‘first bro’ Elon Musk might be stepping away from his duties.

While this might appear to be a response for Trump’s unhappiness with the billionaire tech mogul’s work, this doesn’t seem to be the case.

Trump is reportedly pleased with Musk and his work with Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) over the last few months.

However, both men have agreed that it will soon be time for Musk to return to his many businesses and play more of a supporting role to the president.

It’s an end of an era (BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI / Contributor / Getty)

In recent weeks, Musk has been facing very public criticism from those invested in his business due to his time having to be split.

Last month, Ross Gerber, one of Tesla’s earliest investors, boldly called on Musk to be replaced as the Tesla CEO and cited him not having enough time dedicated to the company as one of the reasons he was calling for a change.

Speaking on Sky News, Gerber said: “The company’s reputation has just been destroyed by Elon Musk.

“Sales are plummeting so, yeah, it’s a crisis. You literally can’t sell the best product in the market place because the CEO is so divisive.

“It’s time for somebody to run Tesla. The business has been neglected for too long.”

However, while people have been floundering that Musk is not currently running his long-standing EV company, allegedly, his role was never permanent.

It was believed by many that Musk was the force behind DOGE, but apparently, he was simply a senior advisor to the president without any real power to make decisions, according to the White House.

“Elon, I want to thank you — I know you’ve been through a lot,” Trump said, after mentioning death threats and vandalism directed at the Tesla cars in a speech.

Donald Trump will apparently be saying goodbye to Elon Musk (Andrew Harnik / Staff / Getty)

Both men then went on to hint at a transition when Fox News’ Bret Baier asked Musk just on March 27 whether he’d be ready to leave when his government role expires.

Musk replied: “I think we will have accomplished most of the work required to reduce the deficit by $1 trillion within that time frame.”

Then, on Monday April 1, Trump told reporters that ‘at some point Elon’s going to want to go back to his company’.

He added that the SpaceX founder ‘wants to’ go back, but that the President would only ‘keep him as long as I could keep him.’

So, while Musk is being booted from his role, it seems as though its bitter sweet for Trump and for Musk too.

In a statement, White House spokesperson Harrison Fields said: “As the President said, this White House would love to keep Elon around for as long as possible.

“Elon has been instrumental in executing the President’s agenda, and will continue this good work until the President says otherwise.”

While it’s an end of an era, it’s probably not an end to their friendship or partnership opportunities in the future.

Elon Musk dismissed the idea that he was a Nazi and insisted people were simply attempting to assassinate his character.

Sitting down with Fox News’ Lara Trump, Elon Musk dived into a whole host of topics, including the accusations that he was a Nazi.

This in references to the slews of accusations that came up against the billionaire over a rather odd gesture he made during Donald Trump’s inauguration.

Taking to the stage to praise Trump, Musk appeared to make a ‘nazi salute’.

The billionaire tech mogul commented: “Thank you for making it happen. Thank you, my heart goes out to you,” before turning back to the audience and repeating the bizarre gesture towards the American flag.

Musk argued people were attempting to destroy his character (Fox News)

This spread quickly on social media and resulted in a barrage of criticism against Musk.

Musk has repeatedly denied that he is a Nazi and argued the term was losing meaning since ‘Democrats’ are so regularly accusing people.

Speaking with Lara Trump, Musk argued people were using this accusation to undermine him as well as Trump.

He said: “It’s a relentless propaganda campaign, which obviously President Trump has experienced for a very long time.

“Twenty years, maybe longer. And politics is a blood sport. So they’re going to come up with whatever attacks they can to destroy the public perception of someone.”

He continued to insist that he is not a Nazi and that the biggest issue of the Nazis were not their dress or mannerism, but rather their quest to kill millions of people.

Musk added: “I’ve not harmed anyone in my life, so it’s an outrageous thing to claim that I’m a Nazi, because the issue with Nazis was not their mannerisms or their, you know, choice of dress, but the fact that they killed millions of people. That’s the issue.

Musk caused mass controversy over this gesture (ANGELA WEISS/AFP via Getty Images)

“They’ve also called President Trump a Nazi, and there was one publication that said he’s … worse than Hitler, Stalin, and maybe Mao combined, but he also is not a violent person, and, in fact, has done a lot to prevent wars and stop wars, which is the very opposite of being a Nazi.”

Musk went on to disparage ‘legacy media’ and argued that people will simply believe negative things about him simply because they were told it ‘from the person on the TV’.

He concluded by saying ‘they’ are trying every angle to get to him, and said it was ‘disappointing’ how well propaganda works.