For the past several months, it seemed like President Donald Trump and Elon Musk were inseparable. The tech billionaire and “First Buddy” championed Trump on his reelection campaign trail, slept at the White House, attended deal-making dinners at Mar-a-Lago, and chainsawed a giant hole in the government with firings and spending cuts through DOGE.

Now, Musk is saying he’s had a change of heart. On May 28th, Musk announced that he’s officially stepping away from DOGE as his “scheduled time as a Special Government Employee comes to an end.” And in the days leading up to this update, Musk has held a flurry of interviews in which he’s tried to convince his audience that he’s done with politics.

“I think I probably did spend a bit too much time on politics,” Musk said during an interview with Ars Technica. “It was just relative time allocation that probably was a little too high on the government side, and I’ve reduced that significantly in recent weeks.” For reasons we’ve explained, the idea he’s leaving politics is suspect – but he’s got good reasons to say he is.

Musk’s time as a special government employee always had a legal 130-day deadline that was up at the end of May. He isn …

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