Elon Musk Gets the Heck Out of DOGE

By Yuval Rosenberg and Michael Rainey

Friday, May 30, 2025

Happy Friday! On this date one year ago, a New York jury found Donald Trump guilty of 34 charges in an election-interference case stemming from a hush money payment to an adult film star. Trump became the first former president to be convicted of felonies - and about six months later he became the first felon to be elected president. Here's what Trump was up to today.

Elon Musk Gets the Heck Out of DOGE

President Donald Trump bid a somewhat strange farewell to Elon Musk on Friday in an Oval Office news conference in which the president praised the Tesla CEO's work as a special government employee overseeing the U.S. DOGE Service.

In a rambling, wide-ranging session before reporters, Trump gifted the world's richest man with a golden key to cap his tumultuous 130 days of government work. The president heaped praise on the tech billionaire, saying his work at the Department of Government Efficiency had made a "colossal change in the old ways of doing business in Washington." He added the DOGE employees would continue their work and that Musk himself would still be involved with the administration.

"Elon is really not leaving. He's going to be back and forth. I think, I have a feeling - it's his baby, and I think he's going to be doing a lot of things," Trump said.

Musk also said he would still be available to advise the president. "I expect to remain a friend and an adviser and if there's anything the president wants me to do, I'm at the president's service," Musk said.

The tech billionaire had announced in a social media post on Wednesday that his time as a government employee was ending and he thanked Trump "for the opportunity to reduce wasteful spending," adding that the DOGE mission "will only strengthen over time as it becomes a way of life throughout the government."

That announcement followed an interview with "CBS Sunday Morning" in which Musk said he was disappointed by the Republican budget reconciliation bill passed by the House because it would increase the deficit. In another clip from that interview released this week, Musk said he has "differences of opinion" with the Trump administration.

"There are things I don't entirely agree with," he said. "But it's difficult for me to bring that up in an interview because then it creates a bone of contention. I'm a little stuck in a bind, where I'm like, well, I don't want to, you know, speak up against the administration, but I don't want to ... take responsibility for everything the administration's doing."

Musk leaves with a black eye: Musk appeared in the Oval Office with a black eye that he said was the result of "horsing around" with his 5-year-old son. The bruise was a ready-made metaphor for Musk's time in Washington, which saw upheaval and uncertainty across numerous agencies as a reported 121,000 federal workers were laid off or targeted for layoffs in the first 100 days of the administration. Thousands of other workers took buyout offers, and the DOGE efforts sparked a widespread backlash, including concerns and pushback from some Trump Cabinet members. Musk's reputation wasn't so much bruised as absolutely battered.

Despite all that, the DOGE cuts fell far short of the $1 trillion in savings Musk had targeted let alone the $2 trillion he had initially floated as a possibility. DOGE's own estimate puts the savings it has generated at $175 billion, though the DOGE numbers and claims have been plagued by errors and some of those purported savings may also be reversed as haphazard cuts are undone. Musk, wearing a "Dogefather" t-shirt in the Oval Office, nevertheless said his promised $1 trillion in savings would be achieved eventually.

Musk was asked by a reporter whether it would be harder to make the government efficient or colonize Mars. "It's a tough call," he replied. "But I think colonizing Mars and making life multiplanetary is harder."

Trump says he supports getting rid of the debt limit: Trump defended the budget reconciliation bill that passed the House, though he said he'd want to see even bigger tax cuts and falsely claimed the package would cut deficits. "It's an amazing bill. It does amazing things," Trump said.

Trump also pressed for an extension of the debt limit. "If we don't extend debt, we're in default," Trump said. "We don't ever want to have a country in default." He warned that the result could be "catastrophic."

Trump has in the past suggested that Republicans should allow the government to default if the Biden administration didn't agree to demands for spending cuts. In the Oval Office on Friday, he brought up past calls by Democratic Sen. Elizabeth Warren to eliminate the debt limit. "I always agreed with her. That was one thing I agreed with her on," he said. "She happened to be right on that. It should be gotten rid of, or it should simply be extended. But that's one of the things it gets taken care of in this bill - that automatically gets extended for a four-year period."

The GOP bill would raise the debt limit by $4 trillion, which is the largest specified increase ever - but would likely extend the government's borrowing ability for far less than four years.

Warren responded in a post on X in which she suggested a bipartisan bill to eliminate the debt limit - an idea that would be sure to run into Republican opposition. She also took the opportunity to slam the GOP tax bill, writing that "jacking up the debt limit by $4 trillion to fund more tax breaks for billionaires is an outrage."

Trump Cheers Huge Drop in Imports, but Economists Worry About a Slowdown

U.S. imports fell by a record amount in April, tumbling nearly 20% relative to March as tariffs imposed by President Trump choked off the flow of goods into the U.S. economy.

Imports of goods totaled $276.1 billion in April, a decrease of $68.4 billion from the month before, the largest one-month drop in records going back to 1992, the Census Bureauannounced on Friday. Trump's tariffs likely played a powerful role in the decline, but so too did a surge of imports in March as businesses scrambled to buy essential foreign goods ahead of the tariffs, providing a larger than usual point of comparison for the April numbers.

Exports of goods increased slightly, by $6.3 billion, resulting in a net trade deficit of $87.6 billion for the month, down from $162.3 billion in March - a decrease of 46%.

Celebrating at the White House: The president trumpeted the news for reporters in the Oval Office, playing a clip from CNBC in which the hosts discussed the trade deficit. "I don't think I've ever seen the trade deficit cut in half in one month," said CNBC's Rick Santelli.

Trump clearly enjoyed the news and happily linked it to his tariff policies. "The tariffs are so important," he said, adding that "without the tariffs, our nation would be in peril."

The CNBC report also highlighted new data that showed personal income rose 0.8% in April, boosted in part by a jump in government transfers through Social Security, with nominal wages and salaries rising 0.5%.

**Consumer spending slows and inflation stays tepid: **Consumer spending rose just 0.1% on an inflation-adjusted basis last month, likely driven by worries about the potential fallout from rising tariffs. The savings rate increased, rising to a one-year high of 4.9% from 4.3% in March, suggesting that consumers may be preparing for a rainy day ahead.

Inflation also continued to moderate, with the personal consumption expenditures (PCE) price index edging up 0.1%. Over the last 12 months, the PCE price index is up just 2.1% - very close to the Federal Reserve's 2.0% target rate. The 12-month PCE core inflation rate, which leaves out volatile food and fuel prices, is 2.5%, the lowest since March 2021.

Mixed signals? While Trump was happy to treat the new data as nothing less than a clear vindication of his economic policies, which aim to reduce the trade deficit, economists were a bit more cautious. Some worried that the decline in imports could signal the beginning of a period of sharply increased uncertainty, if not a broader economic slowdown.

"American spending moderated in April as US businesses pulled back significantly on imports after months of pulling forward economic activity to avoid tariff policy," Joseph Brusuelas, chief economist at RSM, said in aresearch note. "This only adds to the uncertainty around the economic outlook at a time when trade policy changes on an almost daily basis."

Olu Sonola, head of U.S. economic research at Fitch Ratings, said U.S. consumers remain resilient, but are growing more cautious due to the growing economic uncertainty. "There is clear evidence that consumers are battening down the hatches," hesaid, per Reuters. "The Fed will welcome the favorable inflation reading in this report, but they are likely to interpret it as the calm before the storm."

Get the latest on Washington's budget battles and more with The Fiscal Times email newsletter every weekday. Sign up today.

Elon Musk Gets the Heck Out of DOGE

Elon Musk Gets the Heck Out of DOGE

Trump Cheers Huge Drop in Imports, but Economists Worry About a Slowdown

Fiscal News Roundup

Views and Analysis