Tyler Pager, Maggie Haberman, Theodore Schleifer, Jonathan Swan and Ryan Mac, A Disillusioned Musk, Distanced From Trump, Says He’s Exiting Washington, NYTimes, May 28, 2025.
Elon Musk took a swipe at President Trump’s signature domestic policy legislation, saying it would add to the national deficit. He complained to administration officials about a lucrative deal that went to a rival company to build an artificial-intelligence data center in the Middle East. And he has yet to make good on a $100 million pledge to Trump’s political operation.
Mr. Musk, who once called himself the president’s “first buddy,” is now operating with some distance from Mr. Trump as he says he is ending his government work to spend more time on his companies. Mr. Musk remains on good terms with Mr. Trump, according to White House officials. But he has also made it clear that he is disillusioned with Washington and frustrated with the obstacles he encountered as he upended the federal bureaucracy, raising questions about the strength of the alliance between the president and the world’s richest man.
Mr. Musk was the biggest known political spender in the 2024 election, and he told Mr. Trump’s advisers this year that he would give $100 million to groups controlled by the president’s team before the 2026 midterms. As of this week, the money hasn’t come in yet, according to multiple people familiar with the matter, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe the behind-the-scenes dynamic.
Too much time on politics:
But Mr. Musk has said in recent days that he spent too much time focused on politics and has lamented the reputational damage he and his companies have suffered because of his work in the Trump administration.
“I think I probably did spend a bit too much time on politics,” Mr. Musk said in an interview this week with Ars Technica, a tech news outlet.
He added: “It was just relative time allocation that probably was a little too high on the government side, and I’ve reduced that significantly in recent weeks.”
He also took a swipe at Mr. Trump’s allies in Congress, telling CBS News that he was “disappointed” by the domestic policy bill that the president championed and the House passed last week.
Middle East rivalry:
He also took a swipe at Mr. Trump’s allies in Congress, telling CBS News that he was “disappointed” by the domestic policy bill that the president championed and the House passed last week.
Mr. Musk complained to David Sacks, the president’s A.I. adviser, and other White House officials about the Abu Dhabi project involving OpenAI, an organization he founded with Sam Altman, with whom he has since had a falling out, according to the official. He also expressed concerns about fairness more broadly for other A.I. companies, and sought to have his own company, xAI, be included in the deal, though it ultimately was not.
Troubles for Elon:
Mr. Musk’s own disillusionment with national politics can be traced back to two recent events, according to people close to him: his frustrations with the president’s tariff regime and the roughly $25 million he spent backing a candidate who ended up losing a judicial bid in Wisconsin.
Back to space:
On Tuesday, SpaceX held a test flight of Starship, the rocket that Mr. Musk hopes will someday take humans to Mars. The vehicle had a successful launch, but sprang a leak halfway through its journey and eventually exploded. On X Mr. Musk called the launch a “big improvement,” but postponed a planned talk he was set to give on “SpaceX’s plan to make life multiplanetary.”
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