Elon Musk Not Working From White House Anymore, Chief of Staff Confirms

‘He’s not out of it altogether. He’s just not physically present as much as he was,’ Susie Wiles said.

(L-R) Elon Musk, White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles, and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick walk toward Marine One on the south lawn of the White House in Washington on March 7, 2025. Travis Gillmore/The Epoch Times

A top Trump administration official confirmed that Tesla CEO Elon Musk, a senior adviser to President Donald Trump, is no longer working from the White House.

“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 New York Post in an interview published Tuesday.

Musk, who leads the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), “hasn’t been here physically, but it really doesn’t matter much,” Wiles said. “His folks aren’t going anywhere.”

Wiles said they are working in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building near the West Wing of the White House.

“He’s not out of it altogether. He’s just not physically present as much as he was,” Wiles said. “The people that are doing this work are here doing good things and paying attention to the details. He’ll be stepping back a little, but he’s certainly not abandoning it. And his people are definitely not.”

The Epoch Times contacted the White House for additional comment on Wednesday.

Last week, Musk told Tesla investors on a call that he would be stepping away from DOGE and White House work starting in May. As a special government employee, Musk also has to leave the government within 130 days of beginning his role there.

Musk said on the call that he will continue to support the Trump administration and DOGE “to make sure that the waste and fraud that we stop does not come roaring back.”

He made those remarks as his company posted lower-than-anticipated profits and net revenue for the first quarter of 2025. Tesla has also been subject to a series of arson attacks and vandalism since Musk joined the administration, leading to several arrests, which Musk has decried.

Before that, Trump told reporters on April 3 that Musk will leave in “a few months” and noted that he has “companies to run,” stressing he wants the tech billionaire to “stay as long as possible.”

Vice President JD Vance said in an early April Fox News interview that after Musk leaves the administration, he will provide recommendations to the administration because “DOGE has got a lot of work to do.”

Since taking office on Jan. 20, Trump has been on a cost-cutting spree that has taken recommendations from DOGE, including the slashing of tens of thousands of federal jobs and the attempted dismantling of multiple agencies. DOGE and the administration have faced a number of lawsuits, with some judges temporarily pausing DOGE’s access to multiple agencies.

A DOGE website that gives regular updates says that some $160 billion has been saved to date, while more than 8,400 government contracts and more than 9,600 grants have been terminated so far. The organization has also canceled some 470,000 credit cards used by dozens of federal agencies since it started.

But the effort to slash government funding is not without critics. Congressional Democrats on Tuesday, without naming DOGE, said that Trump and Musk have blocked more than $400 billion in funding that they say was approved by Congress.

“Instead of investing in the American people, President Trump is ignoring our laws and ripping resources away,” said Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.) and Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.), the top Democrats on the Senate and House appropriations committees.

House Democrats in a letter this month also reminded Musk that he must leave the government before May 30, and asked for confirmation that he would do so.

“We demand an immediate public statement from your administration making clear that Musk will resign and surrender all decision making authority,” the letter said.