Musk leaves Washington with his credibility and brand in self-inflicted shambles | Opinion

 Elon Musk is the world's richest man, so it's fair to expect him to know a thing or two about money and math.

But now that Musk is wrapping up his time as President Donald Trump's "special government employee" in charge of fracturing the federal government with chaos, confusion and concern, it's also fair to ask a few questions.

Because, while campaigning for Trump last fall, Musk bragged that he could easily find "at least $2 trillion" in savings when he took over as the kinda-sorta leader of the new Department of Government Efficiency.

Now headed for the exit, Musk says DOGE might one day hit $1 trillion in savings but has found just $160 billion for now. Sure, $160 billion is a lot of money. But, as The New York Times notes, Musk and DOGE only published on the department's website receipts for $58 billion in savings.

That's just shy of 3% of the $2 trillion he promised us last year and just 36% of what he now claims to have saved this year. It's nowhere near the government cleanup Republicans cheered.

And the nonpartisan Partnership for Public Service, a nonprofit that studies the federal government, recently calculated that DOGE's cuts will actually cost the federal government about $135 billion this year, when you add up costs to defend multiple lawsuits and the potential impacts of firing so many Internal Revenue Service staffers.

Seriously, would you buy a car from Musk, knowing how shady he is with facts and figures?

Musk walks away from DOGE, the joke he helped create

Musk is departing – mostly – from the White House to refocus his attention on his electric car company, Tesla, which saw profits plummet by an astounding 71% in the first quarter of 2025.

Not much has changed at Tesla while Musk was away. A "Cybertruck" still looks like a practical joke where someone slapped fat, black rims on a dumpster and rolled it down the road.

The precipitous drop in Tesla's profits is tied directly to the damage Musk has done to his own personal brand. He made himself the face of the car company. Then he made people despise that face through his antics at DOGE.

A Public Religion Research Institute survey of 5,025 American adults, conducted in February and March and released in late April, found that 58% viewed Musk unfavorably, and that 53% said his work at DOGE was reckless and did more harm than good.

Musk, in what amounted to an April 30 exit interview at the White House with several news outlets, including USA Today, seemed eager to cast DOGE as some sort of joke, as if we're all living in a techno-simulation he crafted. That's some one-two punch: unscrupulous at math and unserious about the impact.