Trump made it official this week. It’s not a question of if, but when, Elon makes his exit. He was always bound to a short term in government. He has no patience to be bound or liable to a proper confirmation process, which means he is only allowed 130 days in the government. And while rules have never really been a concern for the Trump crew, the laws of nature, and the scrutiny of public opinion reign in even the most stubborn – and no one is finding Elon’s cosplaying as government tech support cute anymore.
The consequences are hitting Elon pretty hard too, and it’s getting uncomfortable even for the guy with the most “fuck you” money. His net worth grew to over $400 billion shortly after Trump’s election, but has since tumbled to about $330 billion today. His net worth is likely to get hit more over the tariffs, something he had been curiously mum about even though it will hurt basically all his companies.
Tesla has been hit the hardest, dropping about 46% from its peak in December. Although stark, it’s actually trading at roughly the levels it was before Trump’s re-election, but public sentiment toward the car company is prime-time news with dealerships being a rallying point for protesters and the cars themselves being targets for vandalism. Elon’s hard right turn has turned off the largely progressive customer base that supported the car company, and the consequences are being felt. Elon has made several attempts to rectify the drop in sales, like getting Trump to make a big showing of buying one at the White House.
Protests on Saturday largely took aim at Musk - Source - The DGG
Political Action Discord
Musk has also had several instances of his personal life spilling into public discourse. A few of his baby mamas have become quite vocal over his lack of support. Grimes has been his most public relationship, but her pleas to keep her son out of the public eye have been ignored. Ashley St. Claire has resorted to Twitter spats trying to get her child support, something denied after she broke her silence about him fathering a child with her. His daughter, Vivian, recently sat down for an interview with Teen Vogue to reiterate Musk’s general absence from her life and how she finds out about new half-siblings through social media. Musk is getting a father-of-the-year award from no one.
The fall of Elon has been pretty remarkable. The guy was used to inspire Robert Downey Jr.’s Iron Man character. At one time, he was seen as a liberal hero out to beat climate change and take humans to Mars. All it took to knock him off that track was his kid coming out as trans and a White House snub from a meeting of the minds on electric cars during Biden’s tenure. Yet another casualty of the “Left was mean to me, so now I’m a Republican” trope that led straight to his bankrolling Trump and Sig Heiling Republican audiences. The fallout from this one is particularly impactful.
Musk’s temporary foray into government work has put him at the head of DOGE so he can literally and figuratively chainsaw through our government infrastructure. His targets have been telling. USAID was the first to be crumbled, kneecapping our decades-long efforts to build goodwill and soft power throughout the world. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has largely been halted even though it’s largely seen as a successful department and has saved the public billions since its creation in 2017. It was also investigating several of Musk’s companies and is largely considered a frustrating obstacle to financial institutions. The Department of Education has taken aggressive steps to curb grants to any school or program with a whiff of DEI. The National Institutes of Health is being stripped of its grants funding valuable medical research. The Social Security Administration is cutting access to services by reducing physical access, closing field offices, and the ability to make changes over the phone. Over 280,000 federal government workers were fired, laid off, stuck in some weird administrative leave limbo, or took up the offer to leave voluntarily that was given early in Trump’s second term.
Elon Musk (left) shakes hands with President Donald Trump at the finals
for the NCAA wrestling championship in Philadelphia on March 22, 2025. |
Matt Rourke/AP
The effects of these policies will likely not be fully realized in the immediate future, and while some are cheering Musk’s exit, I’m not so sure it’s going to have the positive impact they believe. While all this is horrible and Musk is credited as being the orchestrator, he is also the thing everyone is watching. What if Musk’s exit also takes away the attention these changes have been getting? Many of these changes are being challenged in the courts right now, and these battles are long from over. I hate Musk’s trolling as government tech support and his dark MAGA hat, and so do a lot of other people. Without Musk’s limelight shining on this shit show, how many people are going to start to tune out?
So sure, Elon might finally slink off stage, but don’t pop the champagne yet. He’s already gutted key agencies, fired a quarter million workers, and handed out sledgehammers to people who think governance is just leftist overreach. If he walks, the damage doesn’t. The difference? Without his chaos magnet pulling headlines, the rest of the wreckage gets to rot in peace. It might be the most dangerous part of his legacy: not what he broke while everyone was watching, but what keeps breaking when no one is. The villain exits stage right, and the audience, bored without their favorite clown, stops watching while the real horror unfolds behind the curtain.