Elon Musk Got the Access. Now He’s Out.
The MAGA base won’t question it. That’s the point.
Elon Musk has officially announced his departure from the Trump administration, stepping down as head of the Department of Government Efficiency, DOGE, in name and irony. The announcement followed closely on the heels of a blistering CBS interview aired earlier this week, where Musk made his disillusionment unmistakably clear:
“I think a bill can be big, or it can be beautiful. I don’t think it could be both.”
He was referring to President Trump’s latest budget bill, a $3.8 trillion deficit driver loaded with pet projects, retaliation slush funds, and performative cuts dressed up as reform. It's the kind of legislation that tells you everything about this administration's priorities: consolidating power, not governing effectively.
Let's not romanticize Musk's role. He signed up for this. He knew what he was getting into, or at least he should have. But even he couldn't survive the dysfunction. His exit, after just six months, speaks volumes. Granted, he does have to go legally, given the spot he occupied in the government as a Special Government Employee, but since when does the Trump Administration abide by the law? That to me is the biggest tell. No extension or lies covering up for you, Mr. Musk. The man who redefined electric vehicles and launched rockets into space just got grounded by Trump's Washington.
Musk came in promising $2 trillion in government savings. Instead, he claimed $175 billion in government cost-saving initiatives, many of which can't be verified. The rest? Red tape, infighting, and a political environment where facts are inconvenient, and loyalty is currency.
He got what he wanted, though, access. His companies benefited from proximity, and he walked away with the keys to more information than most Americans will ever know exists. Databases that were purposely separated to prevent one individual or group from gaining access to all that data at once. Russia also enjoyed a nice piece of it, and I'm not talking about the perfect American honeypot. At one point, Musk’s DOGE team was granted extraordinary access to data inside the Department of Treasury, including internal audits, financial compliance systems, and even elements of IRS enforcement targeting. Where did all that information go? Who has it now? What protections were put in place, if any? Remember this whole fiasco?
But hey, if nothing else, in addition to destroying the lives and careers of many public servants, he gave us a government era defined by endless, bizarre references to “Big Balls.” Perhaps that’s the legacy he wanted. Someone should commission a plaque for the U.S. Department of Treasury’s lobby.
“In Honor of the Big Balls of Bureaucracy, 2025.”
Musk’s departure isn’t just a headline; it’s a symptom. A sign that even billionaires with moonshot visions can't navigate the wreckage Trump has made of governance. Too bad the Trump propaganda machine knew this day would come and has been laying the groundwork for months to ensure that the MAGA crowd doesn’t connect the dots enough to realize that his departure is a red flag.
In recent months, Trump-aligned media and surrogates began deliberately distancing themselves from Musk. Once a vocal Musk fan, Steve Bannon dismissed him after Trump reportedly denied Musk access to a classified Pentagon briefing. Conservative outlets started pushing the narrative that Musk was no longer aligned with Trump’s agenda. The point was clear: if Musk walked away, they wanted the base primed to believe it was because he wasn’t loyal enough.
This wasn't accidental; it was preemptive damage control, a calculated pivot to frame Musk's exit as a personal failure, not a political indictment. That's how this machine works: it breaks people down and rewrites the ending.
I've sat in rooms with Trump's inner circle and watched capable professionals be cast aside for cronies. The point was never to make the government work better; the point was to make it obey. Musk tried to play the role of a reformer, but reform doesn't survive in an administration built on revenge and spectacle.
I wrote months ago about The Rise of Elon Musk, and how dangerous it is when unchecked power, ego, and access collide. His resignation? Not surprising. It’s the natural outcome of that exact dynamic.
As someone who’s spent her career in public service—and knows the real people whose jobs and futures were upended by the DOGE disaster—let me just say this to Elon, with all due respect (none):
-Olivia
P.S. BIG NEWS: 🚨Join me this Monday, June 2nd, at the Lincoln Theatre in Washington, DC for a powerful town hall “The Fire Within” where I’ll be on stage for a live show alongside
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"The point was never to make the government work better; the point was to make it obey. " An apt summary of Trump's regime.
And that was his game the entire time. It’s scary to think about what he plans to do with our data, since he paid around $300+ million to get it. And, I’m certain that he would never setup backdoor access to all those government networks and servers, since he’s such a honest person… right??? (Hint: he did setup accounts to continue accessing the government networks and we already know that he has given the Russians the logins)
Even if we flip the House and Senate in 2026 and the WH in 2028, it is going to take decades to clean up all the “criming”.