The Swamp Wins Again, Even Against Elon Musk

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/05/29/opinion/elon-musk-doge-leaving-washington.html

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Less than five months. That’s how long it took Washington to slap down the richest man in the world.

Having bought himself a presidential buddy in last year’s election, Elon Musk came bebopping into the nation’s capital, with his “tech support” T-shirt and SpaceX sneakers and grand vision of ruling as an unelected co-president. The power! The pomp! The sweet shout-out at President Trump’s first joint address to Congress! Who wouldn’t drop nearly $300 million to get that kind of rush if they could afford it?

But on Wednesday we learned that the Trump-Musk bromance has evolved. Musk’s time as a special employee of the administration is ending, with offboarding already underway. This “quick and abrupt” decision was made at “a senior-staff level,” according to Reuters.

Translation: Thanks for all the support, pal, but you’re getting on people’s nerves.

For all the drama and trauma he wrought, driving out federal workers and hollowing out agencies, Musk found himself unable to achieve anywhere close to the $2 trillion in savings he had so confidently promised, or even the $1 trillion he later suggested. Instead, he ran smack into a Washington wall not dissimilar to those encountered by the many would-be disrupters who came before him. Musk got his kicks cosplaying with a chain saw. But Congress and especially the courts have entire systems devoted to curbing overexcited demolition artists.

Musk grew frustrated. Washington was thwarting his will, even as his political dabbling was taking a blowtorch to his global reputation and the value of his private businesses. He spent millions in a Wisconsin judicial race and lost unceremoniously. Trump stopped posting about him. He began whinging, privately and then more publicly, particularly about tariffs.

Musk’s star had been sinking internally for a while, but it’s notable that the news of his official separation from the administration came one day after he pointedly slagged the Trump-backed “one big, beautiful bill” now before the Senate.

Not that Musk’s official departure will free us of his destructive meddling. DOGE grinds on. More important, Musk remains brain-numbingly rich. In a lower-profile capacity, he remains useful to Trump — and vice versa. (Musk’s companies do love their government funding.) So odds are he’ll continue popping up at Mar-a-Lago and around Washington, ego unbowed. Though hopefully he’ll leave the “tech support” shirt at home.