Tech billionaire Elon Musk, finally ousted from his unofficial but very influential White House advisory role, said he’s cutting back on political spending after practically bankrolling President Donald Trump’s 2024 campaign.
“In terms of political spending, I’m going to do a lot less in the future,” Musk said on Tuesday at the Qatar Economic Forum. “I think I’ve done enough,” he added, to audible laughter from the audience.
He has certainly “done enough”—maybe too much. The world’s richest man and “first buddy” to the president blew a chunk of his vast fortune boosting Trump and the GOP with often unethical schemes and now seems to be bleeding cash. Whether that’s due to politicshis growing unpopularityor his ever-growing list of child support payments is anyone’s guess.
“If I see a reason to do political spending in the future, I will do it,” Musk added. “I do not currently see a reason.”
If he’s serious about stepping away from politics, then good riddance. As head of the so-called Department of Government Efficiency, Musk delivered little but pain and chaos: gutting or proposing cuts to cancer research, food aid, Social Security, veterans’ health careand more. According to The New York TimesDOGE had slashed at least 58,000 federal jobs by mid-May, with another 148,000 on the chopping block.
But don’t count the unelected megalomaniac out just yet. One of Musk’s advisers told NBC News that stepping back publicly doesn’t mean stepping away.
“Musk scaling back his public profile does not diminish his influence. I think it can actually sharpen it,” the unnamed adviser said. “He can still quietly fund stuff and support stuff he believes in, causes he believes in, but does not create unnecessary noise. These midterms will be about message discipline and a focus on the economy, not fights on X.”
Musk claims he’s putting politics on the back burner so he can refocus on his electric vehicle company Teslawhere things aren’t going welleither. Investors openly worried he’d taken his eye off the ball while playing kingmaker with Trump. Sales and stock prices slumped. Rumors even swirled about a potential CEO shakeupbut Musk said Tuesday he’s not going anywhere for at least five years.
Unfortunately for him, the numbers tell a bleak story. Tesla deliveries dropped 13% in the first three months of 2025 compared to last year, according to The Wall Street Journal. And new data from the Axios Harris Poll 100 shows Tesla’s reputation is in freefall. Once ranked 8th among America’s most visible companies in 2021, Tesla has now cratered to 95th—dead last in “character” and near the bottom in “ethics” and “citizenship.”
His rocket technology company SpaceX isn’t faring much better. Axios found its favorability also collapsed, with the company ranking 90th in “character” and scoring similarly low on metrics like “trust,” “culture,” and “ethics.”
Axios said Tesla didn’t respond to a request for comment on the latest polling. Daily Kos reached out as well, to no avail. But Musk, naturally, waved it all off.
“Our sales are doing well at this point,” he claimed on Tuesday. “It’s already turned around.”
Meanwhile, Tesla is still blasting out desperate 0% APR lease offers and other incentives—a clear sign the alleged turnaround is more spin than substance. And April was another dismal monthrecent data suggests.
Related | Musk is supposedly leaving the White House—but not our lives
But let’s not get ahead of ourselves: Even if Musk really is done throwing money at GOP campaigns, he still owns one of the most powerful misinformation machines in the world. And those close to him have already hinted that he could use social media to help influence elections in the future.
So sure, maybe Musk is edging away from political spending. But if we’re lucky, this is the beginning of the end—for his grip on our government, at least.
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