Billionaire Elon Musk announced that he is leaving his position in the US government, whose goal is to reduce federal spending.

The announcement came shortly after his first serious conflict with President Donald Trump over his spending bill, AFP reported.

“As my term as a special government official is coming to an end, I would like to thank President Donald Trump for the opportunity to reduce waste,” Musk wrote on his social network X.

“DOGE's mission will grow stronger over time as it becomes a way of life throughout the government,” he added.

The South African-born tech mogul said Trump's bill would increase the deficit and undermine the work of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), which has laid off tens of thousands of people.

Musk, who was constantly by Trump's side before stepping down to focus on his businesses Space X and Tesla, also complained that DOGE had become a “scapegoat” for dissatisfaction with the administration.

“I was disappointed to see the huge spending bill, which, frankly, increases the budget deficit rather than reducing it, and undermines the work that the DOGE team is doing,” Musk said in an interview with CBS News, an excerpt of which was broadcast late on May 27.

Trump's “One Big, Beautiful Bill Act” passed the US House of Representatives last week and is now moving to the Senate. It offers extensive tax breaks and spending cuts and is a central element of the Republican's domestic agenda.

Critics, however, warn that it will destroy healthcare and increase the national deficit by up to $4 trillion over a decade.

"The bill may be big, or it may be beautiful. But I don't know if it can be both. That's my personal opinion," Musk explained in the interview, which will air on June 1.

The White House tried to downplay the differences over US government spending without directly mentioning Musk.

“A big beautiful bill is NOT an annual budget bill,” Trump's deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller wrote on Musk's social network, X, after the tech titan's comments were broadcast.

All cuts to DOGE will have to be made through a separate bill targeting federal bureaucracy, according to US Senate rules, Miller added.

However, Musk's comments represented a rare disagreement with the Republican president, whom he helped return to power as the largest donor to his 2024 election campaign. | BGNES