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Investing.com-- Tesla Inc (NASDAQ:TSLA) CEO Elon Musk said on Tuesday that he will not step down from the Department of Government Efficiency, and that he was only reducing his time dedicated to the agency.
“Not stepping down, just reducing time allocation now that @DOGE is established,” Musk said when replying to a post on X.
Musk’s comment comes just hours after he said on Tesla’s first-quarter earnings call that he will be stepping back from his duties with the government to focus more on the electric vehicle maker, starting from May.
Musk said he will still remain an advisor to Trump, and will dedicate a few days a week to his government duties. DOGE was formed by Trump and led by Musk to explore slashing government spending, with Musk initially claiming that the agency could cut the fiscal deficit by $2 trillion in the next two years.
But Musk has since largely trimmed his cost-cutting target.
Musk’s work with DOGE has been widely criticized, both by the public and by Tesla shareholders, with the latter claiming that he has been neglecting the EV firm even as it grapples with a sharp drop in sales.
“The large slog of work necessary to get the DOGE team in place and working with the government to get the financial house in order is mostly done,” Musk had said during the earnings call, although he said that he still intended to spend about 40% of his time on DOGE.
Musk’s commitment comes after Tesla clocked substantially weaker-than-expected Q1 earnings, amid sliding sales, increased Chinese competition, as well as looming disruptions from President Donald Trump’s steep trade tariffs.
Musk has also been at the center of a Tesla boycott in several parts of the U.S. and Europe, over his political affiliations with the alt-right.