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Musk says time commitment to DOGE will 'drop significantly' as focus returns to Tesla
Rob Wile
5 min read
Tech billionaire Elon Musk said Tuesday that he will begin dedicating more time to Tesla and less to his work with the Trump administration starting next month, providing a relief to Tesla investors fed up with his political work and signaling a possible shift in power at the White House.
Musk's comments came on Tesla's call with investors following the company reporting a sizable drop in first-quarter profit and revenue. The company warned that the political environment along with the Trump administration's tariff plans were challenges for its business.
"Starting probably next month, May, my time obligation to DOGE will drop significantly," Musk said, referring to his Department of Government Efficiency.
"I think I'll continue to spend a day or two per week on government matters for as long as the president would like me to do so, and for as long as it is useful, but starting next month, I'll be allocating far more of my time to Tesla, now that the major work of establishing the Department of Government Efficiency is done," he said.
Tesla — which is increasingly trying to diversify into high-tech products like robots — said profits fell 71% to $409 million, compared with $1.39 billion during the same quarter one year ago.
Shares of Tesla were up about 4% in after-hours trading, though the company has lost 50% of its value from its mid-December peak.
The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Musk's announcement.
Musk reiterated on the call that he intends to pivot Tesla from its established electric car business into two new products: robotaxis and humanoid robots, two ideas that investors have been skeptical about.
Musk said that Tesla was still on track to begin selling robotaxi rides in Austin, Texas, in June, putting Tesla into head-to-head competition with Google spinoff Waymo, which launched robotaxi rides there in March via the Uber app.
Tesla, in its written earnings report, said that "uncertainty in the automotive and energy markets" associated with "rapidly evolving trade policy," along with "changing political sentiment," could have "a meaningful impact on demand for our products in the near-term."
It also said updates to its best-selling Model Y that affected its availability on the market contributed to the shortfall.
"We remain committed to expanding our business model to include delivering autonomous robots across multiple form factors and use cases — powered by our real-world AI expertise — to our customers and for use in our factories, as we navigate these headwinds," it said.
It said it was not prepared to provide guidance for performance the rest of the year — a decision other companies are also making — because of broad trends that include the impact from tariffs. Tesla has boasted that is "the most American-made" car, but it still faces tariff exposure due to imported parts.
It said it would "revisit" guidance for 2025 in three months.
"It is difficult to measure the impacts of shifting global trade policy on the automotive and energy supply chains, our cost structure and demand for durable goods and related services," Tesla said in the outlook section of its report.
Musk, on the conference call, said he pressed Trump to reverse course on his tariff policy but was not successful.
"I'm one of many advisers to the president. I'm not the president, but I've made my opinion clear to the president," he said. "I'm an advocate of predictable tariff structures."
Musk has faced pressure from many sides, including from investors who would like him to pay more attention to the company and from his job in the Trump administration, where he has volunteered to slash government programs.
Musk has kept his CEO roles at Tesla and SpaceX even while he has spent much of his time with President Donald Trump and his Department of Government Efficiency, the group charged with reducing federal spending.
A CNBC All-America Economic survey released earlier Tuesday underscored the depth of the negative sentiment toward Tesla and Musk: 47% of the public had negative views of the company versus 27% positive, and half had negative views of Musk, compared with 36% who saw him positively.
"Tesla has become a political symbol around the world," Daniel Ives, managing director at Wedbush Securities, said in an interview on CNBC after the earnings report was released.
Ives said the political controversy has hurt Tesla not only by reducing demand for vehicles but also because Tesla has become a target for retaliatory tariffs by other nations, such as China.
The earnings report did not explicitly mention the repeated vandalism against Tesla vehicles or the peaceful protests at its showrooms, instead citing the "changing political sentiment" as a headwind for demand.
A key question for Tesla, Musk and the Trump administration has been how long Musk will remain in his White House position. His job as a “special government employee” is time-limited by law to 130 days during any period of 365 consecutive days, which could put his legally mandated endpoint as early as late May. Musk told Fox News this month that he believed “most” of his work would be done by the deadline.
This article was originally published on NBCNews.com
