Elon Musk has said that he is planning on “spending 24/7” at his tech companies after stepping away from his more public-facing role at the Department of Government Efficiency.
The DOGE lead said that he would be focusing more on X, Tesla, and SpaceX, which have all seen drops in their reputation during Musk’s political work, according to polls.
Why It Matters
The statement is further confirmation that Musk will be spending more time on his companies than on DOGE, which has defined the first few months of the second Trump administration. Musk has come under heavy criticism from the public for the cuts DOGE made to federal spending, with Tesla becoming a beacon for anti-Musk protests. The company’s sales slumped in the first quarter of 2025, losing 71 percent of profit since Musk entered office.
What To Know
In a Saturday post on his social media platform X, formerly Twitter, Musk confirmed that he would be working “24/7” on the companies that made him a household name.
Musk was responding to a technical problem that rendered X unusable for thousands of users across the world, with over 25,000 error reports flagged by social media watchdog DownDetector.
Musk wrote: “Back to spending 24/7 at work and sleeping in conference/server/factory rooms.
“I must be super focused on X/xAI and Tesla (plus Starship launch next week), as we have critical technologies rolling out.”
The message came after X experienced a worldwide technical failure that made it impossible to properly read any messages on the site, which Musk took over ownership of in 2022.
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“As evidenced by the X uptime issues this week, major operational improvements need to be made. The failover redundancy should have worked, but did not,” Musk said after the site was restored.
Musk’s departure from politics has been increasingly clear in the last month, with Musk saying that he had “done enough” political work, and Vice President JD Vance confirming that DOGE would continue its work without Musk at the helm.
He has already announced in the media that he intended to step back from DOGE.
Additionally, Musk said in a recent meeting with Tesla investors that he would be spending more time with the company, saying in April: “I think starting probably next month, May, my time allocation to DOGE will drop significantly.”
What People Are Saying
Vice President JD Vance echoed the sentiment that DOGE would continue in some form without Musk at some point in the future, telling reporters: “DOGE has got a lot of work to do, and that work is going to continue after Elon leaves. But fundamentally, Elon is going to remain a friend and an adviser of both me and the president.”
What Happens Next
After Musk’s exit, Cabinet secretaries are expected to continue the department’s work. “There’ll be a point at which the secretaries will be able to do this work … with the scalpel, and that’s what we want,” Trump said in April.