Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk announced his departure from DOGE on social media Wednesday after five months of viral moments and cuts that sparked both praise and controversy nationwide. Fox News Digital compiled five of the top memorable moments from that span.
Tesla photo shoot at the White House with President Trump
As Musk’s efforts to cut government waste resulted in outrage from Democrats and violent protests at Tesla dealerships across the country, along with a dip in Tesla’s stock price, President Donald Trump announced he was going to purchase a Tesla and met with Musk outside the White House to look at options.
‘I’m going to buy a brand-new Tesla tomorrow morning as a show of confidence and support for Elon Musk, a truly great American,’ Trump announced.
‘To Republicans, Conservatives, and all great Americans, Elon Musk is ‘putting it on the line’ in order to help our Nation, and he is doing a FANTASTIC JOB! But the Radical Left Lunatics, as they often do, are trying to illegally and collusively boycott Tesla, one of the World’s great automakers, and Elon’s ‘baby,’ in order to attack and do harm to Elon, and everything he stands for,’ Trump said on Truth Social.
Trump and Musk were photographed examining different Tesla models and sitting inside them.
Musk got in on the passenger side and joked about ‘giving the Secret Service a heart attack’ as they talked about how to start a vehicle that can reach 60 miles per hour in a few seconds.
‘That’s beautiful, this is a different panel . . . everything’s computer!’ Trump remarked, in a comment that went viral on social media. ‘That’s beautiful! Wow!’
Trump told reporters that he would write a check for the car he chose, which retails for roughly $80,000, and leave it at the White House, so his staff could drive it. The president also said he hopes his purchase will boost Tesla, which was struggling with sagging sales and declining stock prices at the time.
Iron Mountain revelation
One of the most notable DOGE revelations as it scoured the government for waste, fraud, and abuse was Musk’s announcement in February that his agency was looking into a limestone mine in Pennsylvania where he said federal employee retirements are processed manually using a system that could take months.
‘We’re like, well, what? Why is that? Well, because all the retirement paperwork is manual on paper,’ Musk said. ‘It’s manually calculated and written down on a piece of paper. Then it goes down to mine and like, what do you mean, a mine?’
DOGE wrote on X that an old limestone mine in Boyers, Pennsylvania, about 60 miles north of Pittsburgh, is where about 700 workers operate more than 230 feet underground to process about 10,000 federal retirement applications per month.
The applications are processed by hand using paper, and are stored in manila envelopes and cardboard boxes, DOGE said.
The Washington Post described the facility as a ‘sinkhole of bureaucracy’ in a 2014 article. At the time, the report said the total spending on the retirement system was $55.8 million.
‘And then the speed, the limiting factor is the speed at which the mine shaft elevator can move, determines how many people can retire from the federal government,’ Musk said. ‘And the elevator breaks down and sometimes, and then you can’t, nobody can retire. Doesn’t that sound crazy?’
Lil X steals the show at the White House
Musk’s 4-year-old son, Æ A-12, also known as ‘Lil X,’ was often seen accompanying his father for visits to the White House and Capitol Hill in recent months, often going viral on social media.
In February, Lil X made headlines after attending an Oval Office meeting and mimicking his father while he spoke, at one point sitting on Musk’s shoulders and putting his fingers in the former DOGE chief’s ears, and holding onto the Resolute Desk.
‘This is X, and he’s a great guy. High IQ,’ a chuckling Trump said, adding that the boy is a ‘high-IQ individual.’
In March, heartwarming photographs of Trump walking to the president’s helicopter, Marine One, with Elon Musk’s son went viral on social media, with internet users doting over the joyful moment.
Explosive interviews with ‘Big Balls’ and the DOGE team
Musk sat down with ‘Special Report’ executive editor Bret Baier for a revealing behind-the-scenes interview with members of his team earlier in March and offered previously unseen glimpses into the work being done.
Musk, along with DOGE members Steve Davis, Joe Gebbia, Aram Moghaddassi, Brad Smith, Anthony Armstrong, Tom Krause and Tyler Hassen, illustrated key efforts of the department to achieve Trump’s goal. Davis brought up federal credit cards, which he labeled a ‘mundane’ but ‘illustrative’ example of DOGE’s work.
‘There are in the federal government around 4.6 million credit cards for around 2.3 to 2.4 million employees. This doesn’t make sense. So one of the things all of the teams have worked on is we’ve worked for the agencies and said, ‘Do you need all of these credit cards? Are they being used? Can you tell us physically where they are?” Davis explained.
‘Clearly there should not be more credit cards than there are people,’ Musk responded.
The eight-man group also discussed DOGE’s work relating to the federal workforce, financial management, government infrastructure, computer systems, Social Security and more.
‘They may characterize it as shooting from the hip, but it is anything but that,’ Musk said, noting that the agency’s approach to cuts is to ‘measure twice, if not thrice, and cut once.’
Earlier this month, Musk and his team gave a second revealing interview to ‘Jesse Watters Primetime,’ outlining examples of waste they had discovered in government.
As the team shared cases of wasteful spending from top departments to smaller agencies, Watters asked how the findings made Musk and the DOGE members feel.
‘Unfortunately, like the 100th time you’ve heard it, it’s hard not to get a little numb, and by the 200th time, you’re like, well, OK, it was just another day at the office,’ Musk replied.
One DOGE member, who joined Musk on ‘Jesse Watters Primetime,’ revealed that he had dropped out of Harvard University to ‘serve my country,’ but faced backlash.
‘It’s been unfortunate to see lost friendships. Most of campus hates me now, but I think, fundamentally, I hope people realize through conversations like this that reform is genuinely needed,’ he said.
In the interview, 19-year-old DOGE team member Edward Coristine revealed how he got the nickname ‘Big Balls,’ which had received significant chatter online.
Coristine went on to say that the system that distributes government or taxpayer money ‘literally has no checks and no accountability to the actual American taxpayer.’
‘So, it’s a huge vector for fraud, waste, and abuse.’
Dismantling of USAID
Out of the many agencies that experienced cuts during Musk’s time at DOGE, USAID was perhaps the most discussed and most affected by DOGE’s findings.
In March, Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced that 83% of USAID programs would be canceled following the conclusion of a six-week review by DOGE.
In total, 5,200 contracts were to be terminated, Rubio wrote on X, announcing the new reforms. He said the canceled contracts amounted to ‘tens of billions of dollars’ being spent ‘in ways that did not serve,’ or even harmed, the national interests of the U.S.
Rubio added that the remaining 18% of USAID programs—approximately 1,000—would now be managed by the State Department. The move to transfer that authority, he said, was made in consultation with Congress.
Several examples of questionable spending were made public by DOGE, including where Biden’s USAID awarded $20 million to a nonprofit called Sesame Workshopto produce a show called ‘Ahlan Simsim Iraq’ in an effort to ‘promote inclusion, mutual respect and understanding across ethnic, religious and sectarian groups.’
More than $900,000 went to a ‘Gaza-based terror charity,’ called Bayader Association for Environment and Development, and $1.5 million went to a program slated to ‘advance diversity, equity and inclusion in Serbia’s workplaces and business communities.’
Fox News Digital’s Alec Schemmel, Stephen Sorace and Associated Press contributed to this report.