Trump bids official farewell to Elon Musk at the White House

“President Trump bid Elon Musk a formal farewell on Friday after one of the most tumultuous experiments in modern American governance, in which the world's richest man was given carte blanche to slash federal staffing,” summarizes the New York Times .

Mr. Musk said he would “focus on his businesses” now that his time as a “special government employee” was over. “And while Doge is far from achieving the $1 trillion in savings Mr. Musk promised, he has accrued significant personal benefits in recent months, including having his allies choose to lead NASA and the Air Force, two key clients of his company SpaceX,” the newspaper noted.

As is often the case in the Oval Office of the Trump era, the staging was very carefully considered: “Trump was sitting behind the table, while Elon Musk stood, protected by a bust of Abraham Lincoln,” notes El País .

“The scene was reminiscent of another famous appearance in the Oval Office, that of the president and tycoon in February to justify Doge's first steps, except for one detail: this Friday, the richest man in the world, who took four months to suffer the same fate as most of those who get too close to Trump's sun to burn their wings, was not accompanied by his four-year-old son,” the Spanish daily ironically remarked.

But the child, whom photographers had immortalized picking his nose, was nevertheless indirectly present on Friday: Elon Musk was indeed sporting a magnificent black eye, the result of a blow from his young son, according to him.

Despite all this, “the mood was very good,” the BBC observed. “Trump showered Musk with praise, saying he had done a 'fantastic job' and hailing Doge's efforts as having brought about a 'colossal change' in Washington.”

"To top it all off, Trump handed Musk a large gold key" to the White House, "an item he says he only gives to 'special people,' " the British broadcaster added.

“He is one of the greatest innovators and business leaders the world has ever produced, and we have been fortunate to have him step up and put his immense talent to work for our nation,” the US president said. “We are very grateful to him.”

For his part, Mr. Musk said he hoped to continue to be a “friend and advisor to the president.”

A Guardian columnist points out in an opinion column that the Tesla boss is far from having achieved his savings targets at the helm of the Doge and that “ironically, what Elon Musk has most surprisingly managed to slash is his own reputation” .

“Think about it,” she continues. “He came into Trump’s orbit as a bit of a mystery, widely regarded as a tech genius and titan of his era. He comes out with a lot of people understanding that he’s a bizarre and creepy reproductive fetishist, desperately pretending to be good at video games, who wasn’t as essential to the engineering prowess of SpaceX or Tesla as we thought.”

More seriously, Le Soir believes in its editorial that the alliance between the White House tenant and Elon Musk "has fizzled out. Donald Trump is no fool, and his entourage is careful to preserve absolute power," forcing the richest man in the world to leave Washington.

Elon Musk was therefore forced to abandon the Doge and “this position of unelected official which cannot last beyond 130 days, like a carriage turning into a pumpkin, and aware of the collateral damage: growing unpopularity, rising exasperation in the Republican ranks in the face of an abrupt character and a role of scarecrow likely to harm the presidential camp during the mid-term parliamentary elections in November 2026” .