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WASHINGTON — Elon Musk is no longer physically working from the White House, The Post has learned.
Musk, the world’s richest man, is preparing to transition out of his official role with the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), which is based a short walk from the Oval Office, but his departure from in-person work has not previously been reported.
“Instead of meeting with him in person, I’m talking to him on the phone, but it’s the same net effect,” White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles told The Post in an extensive interview to mark Trump’s 100th day in office.
Musk, who defined much of Trump’s initial weeks back in power, “hasn’t been here physically, but it really doesn’t matter much,” she added.
Wiles stressed that “his folks aren’t going anywhere” as they continue work in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building next door to the West Wing.
For months, Musk would brief Trump personally in the Oval Office, attend cabinet meetings and frequently travel with the president on Air Force One — often with his young son X joining him — as he touted plans to slash the annual deficit by $1 trillion, halving the figure.
The precise amount of money that DOGE has cut is unclear.
“The people that are doing this work are here doing good things and paying attention to the details,” Wiles said. “He’ll be stepping back a little, but he’s certainly not abandoning it. And his people are definitely not.”
Musk tore through Washington during Trump’s initial months back in the White House — leading efforts to gut the US Agency for International Development (USAID) and its 10,000 employees and backing the Office of Management and Budget on a similar crusade to shutter the 1,700-person Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB).
His focus spanned the federal bureaucracy from the Education Department to the Pentagon and many small and mid-sized agencies in between.
Musk’s cuts made him a reviled figure among Democrats and prompted vandals to target cars and charging stations made by Tesla. In a public show of support, Trump publicly purchased an electric vehicle from the company on the White House lawn March 11 and urged the Justice Department to take a heavy hand with vandals he dubbed domestic terrorists.
Last week, Musk said on a Tesla earnings call that “starting next month, I will be allocating far more of my time to Tesla.”
The South Africa-born billionaire added that while “the major work of establishing” DOGE has been completed, he would still be interested in continuing to spend a day or two a week on government matters, “as long as it is useful.”
English (US)