Trump Says He Would Like to Keep Musk ‘for a Long Time’

Elon Musk, a special civil servant who leads Doge, recently announced in May that he would spend more time running the electric car company Tesla.

President Donald Trump praised Elon Musk on April 23 after SpaceX founders announced in Washington that he would retreat from his time with the Office of Government Efficiency (DOGE).

“I can’t speak any more about any individual,” Trump told reporters. “He’s an incredible guy. He’s a great guy.”

As a special government employee, Musk, as mentioned in Trump’s January executive order, is less than 130 days to work with the administration. He announced on April 22 that he was stepping back from his work in Washington to spend more time running his electric car company Tesla.

“From next month, we’ll be allocating much more time to Tesla as key work has been undertaken to establish government efficiency,” Musk said in a call with investors.

The company recently won several hits, including a decline in stock prices, a decline in car sales, protests, vandalism and automobile and dealership targets for arson incidents. Musk previously audited federal agencies and said his work with the Trump administration to reduce wasted government spending has caused those hits.

“What (protesters and destroyers) are trying to do is put a lot of pressure on me. Tesla, I think you know… stop this,” he said.

Trump praised Musk for the work he did for removing more than $160 billion in government waste, saying Musk is being treated unfairly.

“These were sick people who thought they were doing something,” Trump added that Musk was a patriot and that the damage Tesla could never have happened.

“He loves the country,” Trump said of Musk. “He didn’t need to do this. He did it. And I told him, I told him, you know, whenever you’re ready, I want him for a long time, but whenever you’re ready.”

Musk said he wasn’t completely separated from the Doge and added when he called out to investors “to ensure that the waste and fraud we stopped have not returned.”

On April 23, the Department of Homeland Security announced that it will work with Doge to overhaul aspects of its Systematic Alien Verification (SAVE) database for qualifications to optimize its immigration-related database and prevent exploitation by illegal immigrants.

“This overhaul will eliminate fees for database searches, break down silos for accurate results, streamline mass status checks, and integrate criminal history, immigration timelines and addresses,” DHS said in a statement Tuesday.

“Automatic status updates and a user-friendly interface will help prevent non-citizens from using taxpayer benefits and illegal voting for federal, state, local, territorial and tribal agencies.”

Jack Phillips contributed to this report.