Musk to continue as Trump adviser

President Donald Trump honored Elon Musk on Friday during an Oval Office news conference marking the end of the Tesla CEO’s time as a special government employee leading the Department of Government Efficiency, known as DOGE. The president presented Musk with a golden key inside a wooden box, a gift Trump said he offered only to very special people. Trump described Musk as one of the greatest business leaders the world has ever known and thanked the tech tycoon for using his talents for public service. Musk first announced his departure on Wednesday, noting that his scheduled time as a special government employee was nearing its end.

What does this mean for DOGE? This is only the beginning of DOGE, not the end, Musk said Friday. Musk planned to continue visiting the White House to serve as a friend and adviser to the president. The DOGE team is doing an amazing job, and its influence will only grow stronger with time, hopefully permeating the government, Musk said. He also remained confident that DOGE would reach its goal to reduce a trillion dollars of government spending, saying the department expected to exceed the $200 billion savings mark soon.

In an interview earlier this week, Vice President J.D. Vance said DOGE’s job of not wasting taxpayer dollars has to continue because it’s one of the most important mandates from Americans. People forget that Musk conducted the first full-scale effort to track how and where the government was spending its money and uncovered $170 billion in waste in a very short time, Vance said.

Dig deeper: Read Leo Briceno and Carolina Lumetta’s report on what changes made by DOGE could be codified in Trump’s budget proposal.