The nation's eX - Musk leaves White House with bruised eye and ego

Elon Musk Came to Washington Thinking He'd Fix It. He Leaves a National Embarrassment.

Elon Musk’s brief and chaotic stint in government ended as abruptly as it began. On Friday, his 130-day tenure as a special federal advisor expired - a hard limit set from the start, given he was never elected, never confirmed, and never truly accountable.

He marked the occasion with a press conference in the Oval Office, sporting a black eye (which he blamed on his five-year-old son) and offering no clear answers about what, if anything, he had achieved.

Reputation? In tatters.
Enemies? More than when he started.
Impact? Increasingly hard to measure — or believe.

Just days earlier, The New York Times reported that Musk’s inner circle had watched him mix high-stakes political work with regular drug use: ketamine, ecstasy, magic mushrooms, and the stimulant Adderall all allegedly part of the routine. What was billed as a visionary partnership with the federal government increasingly looked like something out of a fever dream.

Still, Donald Trump played the role of loyal friend. Hosting Musk at the White House, the president praised his role at Doge - the grandly named (and vaguely defined) government “efficiency programme” Musk had overseen. Trump assured reporters Musk “is not really leaving” and will continue to drop in because Doge is his “baby.” As a send-off, he handed Musk a large golden key - a surreal flourish in a tenure already defined by spectacle over substance.

Behind the theatrics, the outcomes are damning. Musk’s time in Washington was filled with fringe political endorsements, reckless interference in foreign policy, and tech-boosterism unmoored from reality. He publicly supported Germany’s far-right AfD and lent legitimacy to figures like Tommy Robinson, the British far-right 'activist' recently arrested in the UK. Musk has increasingly become an avatar of platformed ignorance - diving headfirst into politics he doesn’t understand, but insists on shaping anyway.

He’s also used his South African heritage as a platform for conspiratorial commentary. During President Cyril Ramaphosa’s recent visit to the White House, Musk was politically present yet a ghost in the room. The meeting, meant to reset US–South Africa relations, veered off course as Trump brought up the far-right narrative of a “white genocide” in South Africa - a false claim Musk has helped popularise on his platform X. Trump even suggested offering Afrikaners asylum in the US, blindsiding Ramaphosa and derailing diplomacy.

If Musk brought anything to government, it wasn’t results. He promised to save the US Treasury $2 trillion through Doge. That number quickly dropped to $1 trillion. By the end, Musk was touting $175 billion in “savings” - but independent estimates suggest Doge may have actually cost taxpayers between $80 billion and $135 billion.

His own company, Tesla, hasn’t fared much better during this political detour. Competitors are gaining ground, and investors are openly agitating. Last week, several pension funds wrote to the Tesla board demanding a real succession plan. Musk, under pressure, promised to recommit to the company — but markets remain unconvinced.

Then there’s his true obsession: space. At SpaceX, the ambitions are more surreal than ever. Trump has announced a proposed “Golden Dome” missile defence system - dependent on SpaceX rockets and Starlink satellites. Musk tweeted simply: “Lasers from space.” It's unclear whether he was joking.

The truth is, Musk wasn’t trying to govern. He was trying to rule by influence - whispering half-truths and utopian promises into the ears of the world’s most powerful man. He bought proximity to power and confused it for power itself.

He leaves Washington not as a disruptor, but as a liability. A billionaire given a national platform, who mistook his social following for expertise - and who cost the public dearly in the process.