Elon Musk told Tesla investors that he would be spending far less time at DOGE next month, as his company’s bottom line is hit by political blowback and his special employee status ends.
“Starting next month, in May, my time allocation to DOGE will drop significantly,” Musk said during a Tesla earnings call with investors, broadcast on Tesla’s X account (a company Musk also owns). “I will be allocating far more of my time to Tesla.”
The call came shortly after Tesla released a lackluster first-quarter earnings report after market close Tuesday. The company’s net income dropped 71% in the first quarter, a grim figure — and Tesla overall missed analyst expectations across the board.
Musk indicated he won’t cease his involvement with the government altogether, telling investors he will “have to continue doing it for the remainder of the president’s term, just make sure that the waste and fraud that we stopped does not come roaring back, which it’ll do if it has the chance.”
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Musk said he would be spending “a day or two per week on government matters” as long as Trump wanted him to do so, although it’s unclear what his role would be given his status as a temporary government employee ends after 130 days (in May).
Musk blamed political blowback on DOGE as a reason for Tesla’s disastrous earnings report.
“The DOGE team has made a lot of progress in addressing waste and fraud, but a natural blowback from that is those who were receiving the wasteful dollars and the fortune of dollars will try to attack me and the team and anything associated with me,” Musk said. “The protests that you’ll see out there, they’re very organized and paid for. They’re obviously not going to say, admit that the reason that they’re protesting is because they’re receiving fraudulent money or the recipients of wasteful largesse.”
Vaibhav Taneja, Tesla’s chief financial officer, also referred to the “negative impact of vandalism and unwarranted hostility towards our brand and our people” in “certain markets” affecting vehicle sales.
Musk also addressed tariffs, many of which have been paused but would likely batter the auto industry. Tesla executives on the call pointed to the company’s longer-term efforts to have their vehicles manufactured domestically, and Musk said Tesla appears to be the “least affected car company.” But he said “tariffs are still tough on a company when margins are still low” and acknowledged that he and Trump disagree on the policy.
“I’m going to get a lot of questions about tariffs, and I just wanted to emphasize that the tariff decision is entirely up to the president of the United States,” Musk said. “I’ll continue to advocate for lower tariffs rather than higher tariffs, but that’s all I can do.”
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Nuha Dolby is a NOTUS reporter and an Allbritton Journalism Institute fellow.
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