5 things Musk accomplished with Trump

Tesla stock prices soared after Musk said he would step back from DOGE duties to focus on his companies more.

By Lisa Lerer

Elon Musk announced Tuesday that he was stepping back from his work at the Department of Government Efficiency to focus more on his companies, particularly Tesla.

Given that his intense focus on Washington appears to be abating, if not concluding, I thought it might be a good time to assess what, exactly, he has achieved there. And what better way to grade him than using the same method with which he sought to evaluate thousands of government workers?

Back in February, DOGE demanded that federal employees send an email each week listing five bullet points of their accomplishments.

So, here are five bullet points on what Musk achieved in Washington:

-- He tanked his company. Tesla's profits plummeted by 71% from last year, the company reported Tuesday. And even as sales of electric vehicles rose globally, Tesla sales have slumped because of competition from Chinese carmakers and Musk's support for right-wing causes. On a call with investors Tuesday, Musk attributed the decline to "those receiving the waste and fraud" from the government. "The protests that you'll see out there, they're very organized. They're paid for," he said, providing no evidence for his claim.

-- He became unpopular. Polling shows that Musk's approval ratings have taken a nosedive since he came to Washington, largely driven by disapproval among Democratic and independent voters. In a Marquette University poll this month, 38% of Americans said they had a favorable view of Musk, compared with 60% who viewed him unfavorably.

-- He cut some government spending, but we don't really know how much. Musk arrived in Washington with promises to cut $1 trillion from the next fiscal year's federal budget. On a website tracking its progress, DOGE put the savings at $160 billion. But as the New York Times has reported, that estimate might be inflated. The group's accounting has been riddled with billion-dollar errors and it has claimed to have cut spending that was never even scheduled for this year.

-- He became the country's biggest political donor. An analysis released last month found that Musk had donated more than $291 million to Republican candidates, political action committees and other conservative organizations during the 2024 race. That's nearly $95 million more than the next largest Republican contributor and more than four times more than the largest donor to Democratic candidates.

Since the election, he has shown no sign of halting his involvement in electoral politics. Musk and allied groups spent more than $20 million on a Wisconsin state Supreme Court contest, transforming the race into a referendum on him -- and he lost. And he has threatened primary challenges against any Republican House member who does not support President Donald Trump's agenda.

-- He scooped up a ton of personal data. Through his executive order creating DOGE, Trump granted Musk's group access to "all unclassified agency records" -- a category that includes sensitive information on virtually everyone in America. A recent Times investigation found that Musk's team has tried to access databases that track more than 300 separate pieces of data, including not just Social Security numbers but immigration status, gambling income, student loan balances and even professional job references. We don't know precisely what data the DOGE team has about you, but it could be quite a lot.