Billionaire Elon Musk, who first criticized his ally, US President Donald Trump, a few days ago, confirmed yesterday, Wednesday, that he has completed his mission of reducing federal spending after four months of experimentation.

“As the planned period during which I worked as a special government employee comes to an end, I would like to thank President Trump for allowing me to reduce unnecessary spending,” Musk wrote yesterday on X.

“The ‘DOGE’ (i.e., the Commission on Government Effectiveness) mission will be further enhanced in the future to become a way of life in government,” the Tesla and SpaceX chief added.

However, in an interview with the CBS television network, an excerpt of which was broadcast Tuesday night, Musk adopted a different tone, a more aggressive one.

“I was disappointed to see this massive spending bill, which, frankly, will increase the budget deficit, not reduce it, and which undermines the work that the DOGE team is doing,” he commented, referring to the budget bill Trump is pushing.

In addition, Musk complained, speaking to the Washington Post, that DOGE “had become the scapegoat for everything”.

The “big and beautiful budget bill, as the US president calls it, is currently being considered by Congress. It aims to implement some of the Republicans’ campaign promises, such as the colossal “Trump tax rebates” that he approved during his first term but will expire at the end of the year.

According to an analysis by the independent Congressional Budget Office, the bill would increase the federal deficit, already at $36.2 trillion, by $3.8 trillion over the next decade.

“I think a law can be big or it can be beautiful. But I don’t know if it can be both,” Musk said in the CBS News interview, which will be broadcast in its entirety on Sunday.

The billionaire’s comment marks his first public break with Trump, an alliance with whom he forged during the presidential campaign. Musk offered large sums of money to support the Republican’s presidential ambitions, and their relationship became even closer at the start of his second term as US president.

Musk and Trump were inseparable for weeks after the January 20 inauguration ceremony. The billionaire appeared everywhere: at Trump’s side in the Oval Office, on the presidential jet, in cabinet meetings, in the White House garden during an unprecedented promotional push for Tesla cars.

The tall figure of Musk, always dressed in black with a hat on his head, was omnipresent as Trump proceeded to announce: cutting off US international aid, closing federal agencies, and laying off federal employees.

However, it didn’t take long for articles to appear in the American media that referred to the reactions of Trump’s ministers to Musk’s methods and decisions.

His assignment was announced from the outset that it would be time-limited, and his status as a special government employee was for 130 days.

In late April, Musk announced he was stepping down to devote more time to his business, notably Tesla, whose sales were falling just as its owner was becoming one of the world’s most divisive figures.

On Saturday, after a brief breakdown at X, which he also owns, Musk wrote: “I am back to spending 24 hours a day, 7 days a week at work and sleeping in conference rooms/servers/factories.”

His involvement in federal government affairs has raised many questions about a potential conflict of interest because of the many contracts his companies have signed with the government.