There’s a saying that goes “hindsight is 20/20.”
Tech mogul Elon Muskis experiencing some clarity regarding his time in Politics, he told The Economist in a recent interview.
“I think I got a little too involved in Politics,” he said. “I got carried away frankly.”
The owner of Tesla and SpaceX started to become more interested in Politics during the 2024 elections
This resulted in Musk donating more than $250 million into backing President Donald Trump, who became the Republican nominees
After Trump’s return to the Oval Office, he announced the billionaire would head up a cost-cutting effort known as the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).
“The goal with the sort of DOGE stuff was to try to do something about the deficit, which is massive,” Musk said. “We need to sort of take a close look at spending and make sure that money is being spent in sensible ways and that it is not wasted or spent on fraudulent activities,” he added. “And I got a lot of flak from this.”
Watch:
https://m.youtube.com/shorts/TjTgC740xpc
Since its inception, DOGE was controversial and led to job and funding cuts across the federal government. It officially shut down operations on July 4.
Musk left the department in late May 2025. Since then, the initiative’s efforts waned for more than a year.
The contentious nature of his work at DOGE spilled over onto his companies. Tesla saw its stock sink sharply during his four-month stint in the Trump administration.
After leaving the Trump administration, Musk and the president had a falling out the One Big Beautiful Bill Act that was championed by the president.
Musk eyed launching a third political party, but the effort never got off the ground.
He and Trump appear to have mended their rift as Musk attended a White House dinner last November. Musk also joined Trump on a trip to China with other tech leaders in May.