The US tech billionaire has recently said he plans to reduce his role in President Donald Trump’s administration
Elon Musk has said that he is back to focusing on his business ventures, echoing an earlier pledge to withdraw from political life and end his involvement in the administration of US President Donald Trump.
Musk, the CEO of Tesla and SpaceX and owner of X, recently announced plans to scale back his engagement as head of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), a body created by Trump shortly after taking office in January to implement widespread federal spending cuts.
“Back to spending 24/7 at work and sleeping in conference/server/factory rooms,” the world richest man said in a post on X on Saturday. “I must be super focused on X/xAI and Tesla (plus Starship launch next week), as we have critical technologies rolling out.”
The comment came shortly after X experienced a major two-hour outage, during which users reported failures to log in, view posts, or refresh feeds. Downdetector, a site that tracks user-submitted reports of technical issues, registered over 25,800 reports at the peak of the outage around 12:50 GMT.
“As evidenced by the X uptime issues this week, major operational improvements need to be made,” Musk said, adding that “the failover redundancy should have worked, but did not.”
Speaking at the Qatar Economic Forum earlier this week, Musk also announced plans to reduce his political spending, saying he has “done enough.” The entrepreneur, who reportedly spent over $250 million in support of Trump’s presidential campaign, said he would spend “a lot less” in the future.
The announcements follow a recent ABC News/Washington Post/Ipsos poll suggesting that 57% of Americans disapprove of Musk’s job performance in the Trump administration, while only 35% said they had a favorable view.
Musk’s role as a special government employee is expected to conclude later this month, allowing him to return his full attention to his private ventures, which include Tesla, space technology company SpaceX, social media platform X, and xAI, his artificial intelligence company, among others.
In April, US Vice President J.D. Vance stated that Musk would remain a “friend and adviser” to the US president and to himself when his tenure as head of DOGE is over. The department headed by Musk is expected to continue working until July 2026.
