Elon Musk's bromance with President Donald Trump appears to be finished as the tech billionaire blasted the White House for 'undermining' him and treating DOGE like 'whipping boys.'
The Tesla CEO traded in his MAGA cap for an 'Occupy Mars' t-shirt as he returned to his South Texas roots and spoke to the press before launching a SpaceX Starship into the stratosphere on Tuesday night.
'The federal bureaucracy situation is much worse than I realized,' Musk confessed in an interview with the Washington Post.
'I thought there were problems, but it sure is an uphill battle trying to improve things in D.C., to say the least.'
Musk went on to decry the treatment he and his baby-faced DOGE henchmen had received.
'DOGE is just becoming the whipping boy for everything,' he said.
'Something bad would happen anywhere, and we would get blamed for it even if we had nothing to do with it.'
After helping Trump win the 2024 election with outrageous financial contributions and stage-jumping endorsements, Musk earned the title of 'First Buddy' in the White House.
For the first several months of Trump's second term, Musk was everywhere - briefing Trump personally, gutting federal departments and even bringing his son, X, along to crucial meetings in the Oval Office.
But his arrival ruffled feathers both within the political establishment and among governmental employees, particularly when he set about mercilessly slashing jobs in an effort to root out wasteful spending.
'People burning Teslas,' he told the Post. 'Why would you do that?'
As Tesla showrooms around the nation became the epicenters of violent protests, stock prices nosedived and reports emerged that the board was seriously considering replacing Musk.
'I think I probably did spend a bit too much time on politics,' Musk admitted in a separate interview with ARS Technica.
'It's not like I left the companies. It was just relative time allocation that probably was a little too high on the government side, and I've reduced that significantly in recent weeks.'
In a third interview with CBS, Musk twisted the knife a little further with outspoken criticism of Trump's 'Big, Beautiful Bill.'
The bill is estimated to add another $3.8 trillion to the national debt which currently stands at a monstrous $36 trillion.
Musk said: 'I was disappointed to see the massive spending bill, frankly, which increases the budget deficit, not just decreases it.