The richest man in the world, reviled Trump ally and backer Elon Musk, has finally left the building. The guy who gutted the federal workforce under “DOGE,” who cut off U.S. aid to millions of starving people leading to an estimated 300,000 deaths worldwide, and who sought to use his social media platform and fortune to make Nazis great again, is heading back to run his rocket and car companies, tail between his awkward leaping legs.

Musk’s departure is good news, yet many liberals and progressives don’t seem satisfied with it. A common glum take has been, “It doesn’t matter. He got what he came for.” By this they mean Musk’s access to sensitive private data, along with his success at getting the government off his back for multiple regulatory and legal violations. That $300+ million investment into backing Trump sure paid off for him!

And yet…

It also didn’t. Musk has lost hundreds of billions in Tesla share value and even more in brand value for his once prized electric vehicles. He once sat by the side of the U.S. President, attended meetings of the cabinet (even though he wasn’t actually a part of it), and wielded the levers of power in his own hands when it came to government agencies. Musk departs government despised by most of those cabinet officials and, far worse for him, ignored by Trump himself.

Musk looks and sounds bitter and defeated. To add to his public humiliation, his apparent drug abuse is now a matter of intense and well-documented media scrutiny. Any association with him is proving politically toxic, as exemplified by a stunning state Supreme Court loss in Wisconsin and his billionaire buddy Jared Isaacman whose nomination to head NASA just got yanked because, well, he’s Elon’s guy.

The left seems to forget that it fought back hard against Musk, organizing sustained protests at his Tesla showrooms and driving down sales by eyepopping numbers, including a 49 percent sales drop in April in Europe. In many of the most important ways, Musk was defeated by this grassroots outcry. As a result, he was pushed out of government, with his taste for politics (including massive political donations) far diminished.

Musk’s final week in “office” perfectly encapsulates his myriad problems, where his inherent toxicity and inability to get along with anyone was on full display. Let’s review how that final week went down and how Musk’s “magic” and “power” in the end proved impermanent and illusory.

As Donald Trump himself wondered, “Was it all bullshit?”

The interview that went askew

Musk claims he had always planned to leave his position as a “special government employee” (SGE), and that his departure at the end of May was simply the natural end to a standard tenure. SGEs are limited to working just 130 days per year, after all, so with that bookend fast approaching on May 30th, this was simply the expiration of his allotted time.

“My time as a special government employee necessarily had to end, it was a limited-time thing,” Musk said during a press event at the White House last Friday while pledging that DOGE’s work would continue.

This was, like most things involving Musk, bullshit. As Popular Info noted, there were many ways Musk could have made the case for a longer tenure, even buying himself another 130 days under the existing rules:

If an SGE only works a half-day, then the White House could tally it as a partial day, potentially stretching 130 working days into 260 calendar days or more. Musk had a lot of partial and off days during his time leading the White House’s Department of Government Efficiency. In the last five months, he has left Washington dozens of times to fly to California and Texas for his job as CEO of Tesla and SpaceX.

More to the point, the Trump administration has consistently disregarded federal laws meant to limit executive power, so why would it suddenly respect a rule about how long one of its most powerful employees can stick around?

Why, indeed. The truth is, if Trump wanted Musk to stay around longer, he could have made that happen by exploiting the rules around time calculations, or by inventing a whole new reason.

Musk actually let slip one of his real reasons for his departure in an illuminating interview with CBS. “I'm a little stuck in a bind,” he said. “I don’t wanna, you know, speak up against the administration, but I also don’t wanna take responsibility for everything this administration’s doing.”

But speak up he did anyway, during that very same interview. When asked about the “Big, Beautiful Bill” over the budget, which was passed by a single vote in the House and now faces serious resistance in the Senate, Musk stated, “I was, like, disappointed to see the massive spending bill, frankly, which increases the budget deficit, doesn’t decrease it, and undermines the work that the DOGE team is doing.”

Then he added, “I think a bill can be big or it can be beautiful,” Musk laughed. “But I don’t know if it could be both.”

Ruh-roh.

A clip of Musk saying this—basically throwing a wrench into an already fraught situation in the Senate—went viral, causing certain officials in the White House to go apoplectic. As Reuters reported,

Some senior White House officials, including Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller, were particularly irked by those comments, and the White House was forced to call Republican senators to reiterate Trump’s support for the package, a source familiar with the matter said.

Trump himself was asked about Musk’s comments, and perhaps this was the final paper straw. Within a day of that comment, Musk announced his time in the White House was over, as CBS noted, “Out of DOGE, out of government.”

Look what the DOGE drug out

It must feel a bit like “Everything, Everywhere, All At Once” for the erratic and chainsaw-wielding billionaire. Even as his enemies within the administration—and they are legion—were sharpening their knives, two reporters came armed with receipts to skewer him and serve him up to the public.

Kirsten Grind and Megan Twohey of the New York Times published a bombshell report on Friday covering Musk’s frequent drug use on the campaign trail. The lead paragraphs were real bangers:

As Elon Musk became one of Donald J. Trump’s closest allies last year, leading raucous rallies and donating about $275 million to help him win the presidency, he was also using drugs far more intensely than previously known, according to people familiar with his activities.

Mr. Musk’s drug consumption went well beyond occasional use. He told people he was taking so much ketamine, a powerful anesthetic, that it was affecting his bladder, a known effect of chronic use. He took Ecstasy and psychedelic mushrooms. And he traveled with a daily medication box that held about 20 pills, including ones with the markings of the stimulant Adderall, according to a photo of the box and people who have seen it.

His farewell presser on Friday led off with a question about the reporting. Rather than respond, Musk deflected by attacking the Times for its past reporting.

“Wait, wait, The New York Times, is that the same publication that got a Pulitzer Prize for false reporting on Russiagate? Is it the same organization?” Musk sneered. “Let’s move on.”

This non-response was too much even for the right-wing media. On Sunday, Fox anchor Howard Kurtz called Musk out for refusing to answer the question directly.

“At the Oval Office Presser, Fox’s Peter Doocy started to ask Musk about a detailed report on his allegedly frequent drug use, including ecstasy and psychedelic mushrooms, to the point where the article says it damaged his bladder,” Kurtz noted on Sunday.

Musk, however, “decided to talk about something from five years ago involving the Pulitzers because he knew that he did not want to answer that question. That’s my take.”

To make things worse for Musk, during that same appearance in the White House, Musk appeared to be high on drugs. Or perhaps he was just playing video games in his head.

Students of fascism know that many of the top Nazi leaders, including the Fuhrer himself, abused methamphetamines and other substances. These not only fuel megalomaniacal fantasies, they create paranoia, drive erratic behavior, and cause emotional disassociation, which is necessary to carry out cruel and inhuman acts.

The possibility that people in government with enormous power—or those who are handed large and sensitive government contracts—might be under the influence of mind-altering chemicals is the reason we have government-mandated drug testing for such individuals. But Musk has skirted these requirements entirely, due in part to advance knowledge of impending tests, according to the Times.

Musk’s alleged drug abuse was already widely suspected based on his public statements and appearances where he appeared to be under the influence of mind-altering chemicals. As he leaves the government, the lid has blown off his drug use, and the public now understands we are collectively dealing with a dangerously troubled addict. That will have lasting repercussions for Musk’s credibility and his future as a corporate leader, especially when the Democrats regain control of the House and can begin inquiries into DOGE and its destructive effects.

Sorry, your friends have to go, too

To underscore Musk’s persona non grata status, shortly after his departure the White House announced that it was withdrawing its nomination of Musk’s friend Jared Isaacman as head of NASA. This occurred just days before a Senate vote that likely would have confirmed him in that position.

This should be seen for what it is: a way to keep Musk’s continuing influence at bay. Isaacman’s nomination had already cleared a Senate Commerce Committee and he was a likely shoo-in with the Senate at large. Among all of the terrible nominations lately, this was not as bad, given he has at least some expertise as an astronaut.

The problem for the left—and then for the right-wingers in the White House—was Isaacman’s association with his business partner Musk.

The White House announcement indicated that Isaacman’s priorities were not those of the White House.

“The Administrator of NASA will help lead humanity into space and execute President Trump’s bold mission of planting the American flag on the planet Mars. It’s essential that the next leader of NASA is in complete alignment with President Trump’s America First agenda and a replacement will be announced directly by President Trump soon,” said Liz Huston, a spokesperson for the White House.

In making the decision to withdraw the nomination, Trump also cited a review of Isaacman’s “prior associations,” a veiled reference to the entrepreneur’s donations to Democrats. But as the New York Times reported, Isaacman had told Trump about these past contributions, so Trump was already aware of them. After all, Trump himself has donated to Democrats as part of what he considered the cost of doing business in a place like New York.

That means something or someone else derailed the nomination. It’s speculative but reasonable to assume, as the Lincoln Project’s Rick Wilson argues, that Musk’s detractors in the White House are closing ranks and limiting Musk’s continuing ties. These include Chief of Staff Susie Wiles who has been working quietly to reduce Musk’s influence from the get-go.

It is also reasonable to assume that, now that the head honcho of DOGE is out, his minions scattered about the respective agencies will be a bit like worker bees with no hive queen. My bet is that we’ll see department heads and cabinet officials move quickly to limit DOGE’s ability to affect policy and personnel within and across agencies, and that DOGE members will either be pushed out or absorbed into the bureaucracy rather than continue to act in any coordinated way.

Those DOGE bros had better lawyer up, however. After 2026, should control of the House switch hands, we likely won’t see many people even on the GOP side expending much effort to protect them against congressional inquiries or even criminal referrals by the House. Being a friend or an acolyte of Musk could ultimately be a bit like hanging a big X around your neck.

Punching Nazis in the face

There was something else very unusual about Musk’s final day: He was sporting what was clearly a shiner on his right eye. Someone had struck him hard enough to leave a bruise.

When asked about it, Musk laughed it off as something his four-year-old son X had done.

Whether that is true or not—and there is some reason to doubt the account, given his propensity toward bullshit—the symbolism is inescapable. Musk is leaving the government with a black eye to show for it.

How far the crazed and jumpy have fallen. Who can forget the moment when, at a gathering of ghouls at the Conservative Political Action Conference in February, Musk brandished a chainsaw and roared to the crowd, promising to take it to the federal government?

That promise began on the campaign trail at the $2 trillion mark annually, out of a $6.7 trillion dollar budget. He “revised” that number down, and then down again to a self-reported figure of $175 billion, which is again likely complete bullshit. Indeed, it’s likely that in the end, DOGE will wind up costing the federal government more than it saves as cuts to the IRS reduce tax revenues and as agencies scramble to undo the damage and rehire critical workers who were fired surreptitiously and en masse.

And who can forget Musk’s double Nazi salute during the Trump inauguration celebration?

Certainly not European car buyers, whose countries were ravaged 80 years ago by Nazi armies and bombs, and whose neighbors were sent away to death camps by the millions.

Who wouldn’t want to punch the Nazi in the White House in the face?

Perhaps it was Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent who, according to none other than Steve Bannon, got into a physical confrontation with Musk. Bannon told the Daily Mail that Musk had “shoved” 62-year-old Bessent during a heated exchange over his promises to cut trillions out of the budget.

Said Bannon, “Scott Bessent called him out and said, ‘You promised us a trillion dollars in cuts, and now you’re at like $100 billion. Nobody can find any savings. What are you doing?’” Bannon added. “And that's when Elon got physical. It's a sore subject with him.”

Bannon waited until Musk was on the outs to go public with this episode, choosing to pile on the bad stories around Musk last Friday. It’s indicative of how MAGA is closing ranks and pushing Musk out of power, they no doubt hope for good.

Or perhaps it was another member of Trump’s cabinet, say Marco Rubio or Sean Duffy. Each has been highly resentful of Musk for coming in and gutting their workforce without consulting them. Or perhaps it was Peter Navarro, Trump’s senior trade advisor, whom Musk called (correctly, I should add) a “moron” and “dumber than a sack of bricks.”

Even if it was just his son X, as Musk claims, who punched his father, there is some satisfaction in knowing that the Nazi in the White House—well, at least one of them—got what was coming to him.

Perhaps Stephen Miller can babysit X for a day.

Defeating the undefeatable

A government without Elon Musk in it is a far better one than with him around 24/7. Electoral politics without the weight of hundreds of millions in donations from a single individual are far better than one poisoned by his seemingly endless resources. For example, no longer will it seem futile to other donors to try and make a difference with their money, which was a common refrain while Musk was ready with his checkbook.

Musk may have gotten some of what he wanted, such as our personal data, the extent of which we have yet to discover. That same data is actually at far higher risk now that the administration has granted Peter Thiel’s company Palantir the rights to mine it.

But what Musk truly desired—respect, and if not that, then fear—failed to materialize. If anything, this experience has proven that all his vast riches and media influence were no match for sustained resistance by determined citizens and the bureaucratic machinations in D.C.

Once released from his position and free to speak his mind from outside the government, Musk took aim earlier today at the Big Beautiful Bill once more, tweeting, “This massive, outrageous, pork-filled Congressional spending bill is a disgusting abomination.” He added, “Shame on those who voted for it.”

This doesn’t sound like someone who intends to spend much more of his time hanging around MAGA Republican circles.

Musk’s departure has both an immediate effect on our system (the red-alert threat of Musk is now a low-level hum) and a longer-term deterrent effect on other would-be buyers of our democracy. It turns out that voters, consumers, and political rivals can all come to quick agreement that no one person should wield quite so much coercive and destructive power. Future oligarchs may think twice before wading in so brazenly, only to be shown the door 130 days later, much the poorer for it.

Perhaps Musk summed it up best. While in Qatar this May for an economic forum, Musk was asked by a Bloomberg reporter whether he would continue his political spending in light of the harsh blowback he’s received.

“I think I’ve done enough,” Musk responded.