Elon Musk’s time in the Trump administration has come to a close as quickly as it came and there were 5 big takeaways from his final White House press conference.

Elon Musk has been a massive public figure for years but things pretty much went into overdrive when he became a very outspoken supporter of Donald Trump and his bid for the White House.

Things went a step further beyond when he was welcomed into the Trump administration as the DOGE (Department of Government Efficiency) chief.

Musk had made it clear he would be stepping down from the role last week, and this comes as he faced increased scrutiny from those at Tesla for not giving the business enough of his attention.

Here are some of the big takeaways from the his farewell press conference.

Musk is set to leave DOGE to focus on his businesses like Tesla(Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images

Elon Musk not leaving completely

While Musk is leaving DOGE, he insisted that the work the department has been doing will continue.

Speaking at the White House, he said: “My time as a special government employee necessarily had to end, it was a limited-time thing.”

Musk added that DOGE was now a ‘way of life [that is] “permeating throughout the government.”

Musk also said he will continue to consult with Trump with the president adding: “Elon’s really not leaving, he’s going to be back and forth… it’s his baby.”

Elon Musk’s black eye.

Musk has faced a hefty amount of criticism from all sides since becoming rather outspoken and supportive of Trump which has hurt his reputation.

This has seeped out into his business ventures as well as people have taken to protesting his Tesla cars. But the billionaire appeared to have a literal black eye during the conference and Musk had to eventually explain.

Musk claimed the bruise came from his five-year-old son during some rough play, telling to reporter: ” I was just horsing around with little X, and I said punch me in the face, and he did.

“It turns out even a five-year-old punching you in the face, accidentally, it bruises up.”

Musk condemned the New York Times when a reporter highlighted a recent report by the outlet (Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images)

Elon Musk shuts down drug question

While rumors and speculation constantly follow all public figures, Musk has faced his fare share of them.

During the conference he was asked about a New York Times report that alleges during his time supporting Trump on the campaign trail, Musk consumed multiple drugs that went ‘well beyond occasional use.’

It also raised the question as to whether Musk had been taking a cocktail of drugs while working in the White House with DOGE.

However, before a reporter could even question Musk about their latest report, he cut them off and dismissed the New York Times, noting their reports of alleged Russian interference in the 2016 election.

Musk mocked the outlet and simply said: ‘Let’s move on.”

Trump speaks out on Emmanuel Macron incident

Donald Trump briefly commented about the incident that dominated headlines from a brief video of the French President.

Macron’s wife, Brigitte Macron, apparently shoved the president in his face right as plane doors were opening and video footage of this moment caused a serious stir.

Trump appeared to note make such a big deal out of the incident simply saying: “He’s fine too. They’re fine. They’re two really good people I know them very well.”

Trump also took questions about the ongoing Diddy trial (Johnny Nunez/WireImage)

Trump reflects on Diddy trial

President Trump was also asked about the ongoing trial of Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs and his previous relationship with the rapper/producer.

Combs, 55, is accused of racketeering and sex trafficking by force, fraud or coercion, among other charges – all of which he has denied and has pleaded not guilty.

Trump did not rule out the possibility of a pardon, as he said: “Nobody’s asked. But I know people are thinking about it. I know they’re thinking about it. I think some people have been very close to asking.

“First of all, I’d look at what’s happening, and I haven’t been watching it too closely, although it’s certainly getting a lot of coverage. I haven’t seen him. I haven’t spoken to him in years.”

He closed by saying he would have to look at the facts and see if Diddy was mistreated before he could weigh in about potential pardons.

Elon Musk has addressed the situation with his position in the Trump administration.

It’s no secret that Musk and President Donald Trump have been very close since his inauguration on January 20 this year.

However, the Tesla and SpaceX boss has had to go focus more of his time on his companies after investors became worried about how he was splitting his time between his projects and the government.

The billionaire businessman and Trump agreed that he would lead the cost-cutting Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) and see where he could make things better in the administration.

This was short-lived as Chief of Staff Susie Wiles recently revealed that Musk is no longer working directly alongside Trump anymore.

In an interview with The New York Post, she said: “Instead of meeting with him in person, I’m talking to him on the phone, but it’s the same net effect. He’s not out of it altogether. He’s just not physically present as much as he was. He hasn’t been here physically, but it really doesn’t matter much.

Elon Musk has seemingly addressed his position in the Trump administration (Andrew Harnik/Getty Images)

“The people that are doing this work are here doing good things and paying attention to the details. He’ll be stepping back a little, but he’s certainly not abandoning it. And his people are definitely not.”

So, there have been a lot of questions surrounding why he is now stepping back from his post.

While speculations ran rampant about just where he will fit in regarding the White House, the electric-vehicle head has gone on to speak up about rumors.

In a new post on X, Musk claimed that he is back at his offices to give his all to his own companies, seemingly confirming that he’s totally stepping back from being involved in politics in general.

The post stated: “Back to spending 24/7 at work and sleeping in conference/server/factory rooms. I must be super focused on X/AI and Tesla (plus Starship launch next week), as we have critical technologies rolling out..”

Anyway, now that it’s clear that he will not be returning to presidential aide duties, he can focus on his space endeavours. But it appears that he made enemies while he was helping Trump with his goals.

Musk posted to X his thoughts of his future (Andrew Harnik/Getty Images)

According to a report by The Atlantic, which is based on the confessions of 14 anonymous White House confidants, he’s not well liked.

Could it be because he sent an email in February to the entire federal workforce with the demand to list five tasks they’d completed that week, or they could not bother coming into work?

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

Or, maybe it was when he came into the White House with a ‘Silicon Valley mindset’?

Matt Calkins, the CEO of a Virginia-based software company, Appian, and has worked within the federal government for more than 20 years, said Musk’s downfall could be partly down to the way he thinks.

“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.

The South African president has called out Donald Trump with a dig about his $400 million ‘flying palace’ present.

Earlier this month, Trump confirmed he was set to receive a gift unlike any sitting US president before – a Boeing 747-8 jumbo jet from the Qatar royal family that is so luxurious, it has been dubbed a ‘palace in the sky.’

The move ignited bipartisan criticism and sparked concerns that accepting the gift would contravene the US constitution and amount to bribery from a foreign power.

Yet despite the backlash, the Trump administration accepted it this week with plans to use it as a new Air Force One – the military jet that transports the president.

The Trump administration has confirmed the jet will be modified to become the new Air Force One (BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI/AFP via Getty Images)

Now it appears the decision has rustled feathers across the world too with the South African president taking the chance to make a dig about it while in a heated meeting on Wednesday (May 21).

Meeting in the Oval Office, South African president Cyril Ramaphosa had a bewildering discussion with Trump as the POTUS rambled about disproven conspiracy theories, alleging that white farmers in the country have become the victims of a genocide.

Trump continued in his rant that the ‘fake news’ media was more interested in reporting on his lavish $400 million plane than the alleged race-based murders in South Africa, to which Ramaphosa had a somewhat tongue-in-cheek response.

The POTUS insisted on peddling the conspiracy theory to the bewilderment of Ramaphosa (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

“I’m sorry, I didn’t have a plane to give you,” he said, to which Trump replied: “I wish you did. I would take it.

“If your country offered the United States Air Force a plane, I would take it.”

Racing to social media, many said Trump’s response gave some ‘disturbing’ insight into the administration.

“That’s a really disturbing way of saying ‘I can be bought. America can be bought. I wish you could afford to buy me’,” one said on Reddit.

Another wrote: “This is actually a truly ‘mask off’ moment… Disgusting and I hope the MAGA nuts see how wrong this is.”

The bizarre exchange came as the Trump appeared to ambush Ramaphosa, claiming ‘people are fleeing South Africa for their own safety’.

The meeting took an even darker turn when Trump dimmed the lights to play an anti-apartheid song that includes lyrics about killing a farmer.

At one point, Trump held up articles alleging state-sanctioned violence against white farmers (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

The video, made by South Africa’s Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) party, also included alleged footage of white crucifixes, alluding to murdered white farmers.

“Their land is being confiscated and in many cases they’re being killed,” Trump added before going to accuse the state of sanctioning violence against white people.

But Ramaphosa did not entertain the theory and set the record straight, saying EFF’s song is considered controversial in South Africa. A court ruled that the song cannot be banned as a reasonable person would know it’s ‘not meant to be understood literally’.

“We are completely opposed to that,” Ramaphosa stated, adding that his government is ‘completely, completely against what he was saying.’

He also encouraged his US counterpart to actually ‘listen’ to the ‘voices of South Africans’.

At one point, South African businessman Johann Rupert interrupted to tell the president that while it’s agreed the country has ‘too many deaths’, they are ‘across the board.’

Johann Rupert, founder and chairman of Cie Financiere Richemont SA, also appeared to challenge the theory (Jim Lo Scalzo/EPA/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

“It’s not only white farmers. It’s across the board,” he said.

Meanwhile, farmers in the country’s largest agricultural expo denied anti-white violence, as have the South African courts.

But that hasn’t stopped Trump from peddling the narrative alongside his South African ‘First Buddy’ Elon Musk, and even going so far as to grant refugee status to more than 50 white South Africans.

Trump has also reportedly prohibited the government from participating in this year’s G20 summit in Johannesburg, although Ramaphosa said after their meeting he expects Trump to be there.

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.”