Tech trillionaire Elon Musk admitted that he got “too involved” with U.S. politics in a new interview with The Economist.
President Donald Trump tapped Musk to spearhead the Department of Government Efficiency, known as DOGE, during the first six months of his second term. However, Musk left his government role abruptly in June 2025 after he and Trump clashed in a public feud.
Now, he is acknowledging that he may have been in too deep with politics. However, he defended the central mission of DOGE.
“I think I got a little too involved in politics. Got carried away, frankly,” he told The Economist in a video clip shared online.
He said the goal was to address the “massive” U.S. deficit.
“If you add up all the money spent on what is now the Department of War and intelligence in the U.S. — that is smaller than the interest payments on the debt,“ Musk said.
“So that we need to sort of take a close look at spending and make sure that money is being spent in sensible ways and that it is not wasted or spent on fraudulent activities, and I got a lot of flak for this, obviously,” Musk said.
“But people don’t understand just how simple it was for the DOGE team to approve payments,” he added.
Musk was designated as a special government employee from the beginning of Trump’s term to run DOGE’s mission to slash government spending. With that designation, he was only permitted to work 130 days or less within a 365-day period.
He wreaked havoc across many government agencies by sending voluntary resignation offers and issuing mass layoffs on behalf of DOGE. He left his government role in June 2025.
DOGE officially shut down operations on July 6 — about one year after Musk left the government.
In recent months, it appears that Musk and Trump have attempted to put their feud behind them. Musk, the founder of SpaceX and Tesla, joined Trump as part of his delegation to China in May.
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Lauren Sforza | NJ.com; nj.com; (TNS) || ©2026 Advance Local Media LLC. Visit nj.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
