In late March and early April 2025, rumors swirled online that Elon Musk, the tech billionaire who serves as an adviser in U.S. President Donald Trump's second administration, was planning to step down from his role in government.
Snopes readers searched our website for information about the claim, examples of which appeared on social media platforms including X (archived), Bluesky (archived) and Facebook (archived).
(X user @rawsalerts)
In short, as of this writing, neither Musk nor the White House had offered any concrete timeline for when Musk might step down, although the White House has confirmed his status as a special government employee. According to federal law, Musk can only hold that role for 130 days per year.
At the same time, insiders including Trump and Musk have indicated that Musk will only step down when his work with Trump's flagship, cost-cutting initiative, the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), comes to a close — without giving a specific timeline for when that might happen. According to Trump's Jan. 20 executive order establishing it, the president's "18-month DOGE agenda" is not supposed to "terminate" until July 4, 2026.
We reached out to the White House to ask for details about the administration's timeline for Musk's role as a special government employee. White House spokesperson Harrison Fields responded by email that he had no comment beyond what he and press secretary Karoline Leavitt had already said to other outlets and on social media.
Below, we'll walk you through what we know — and what we don't — about rumors that Musk is planning to step down from his role in the Trump administration.
What is a special government employee?
Much of the discourse about Musk's role in the government has focused on the billionaire's status as a special government employee — a status Leavitt confirmed to reporters outside the White House on Feb. 3., as can be seen around the 2:05 mark in the video embedded below.
According to Title 18, section 202 of the U.S. Code, special government employees can only work for the federal government 130 days per year. As Politico reported on Feb. 2, a 2024 U.S. Office of Government Ethics legal advisory notes that special government employees can, in "unforeseen circumstances," exceed that limit without risking their eligibility in future years. What that means in practice is not certain.
It's also not clear exactly when Musk officially became a special government employee, so his 130-day term could end anywhere between May 30 (130 days after Trump's Jan. 20 inauguration) and June 13 (130 days after Leavitt confirmed Musk's special government employee status on Feb. 3).
Those estimates, it's worth pointing out, assume that Musk has performed work as a special government employee every day since he received the designation, including weekends and holidays. Although we have not been able to confirm that Musk has really worked on behalf of the Trump administration each of those days, his own messaging implies he has.
For example, in a Feb. 2 X post (archived), he said, "DOGE is working 120 hour [sic] a week" — equivalent to seven 17-hour days per week. And in a March 27 interview with Fox News' Bret Baier, Musk claimed around the 02:15 mark in the below video that he and his DOGE team had been working "every day, seven days a week."
What are the rumors about Musk leaving?
On April 2, multiple national news outlets independently reported that unnamed White House sources had told them Musk would reduce or leave his role in the government sometime in the coming weeks or months.
In an article published that morning, Politico's Capitol Bureau Chief Rachael Bade reported that "three Trump insiders" — none of whom agreed to be identified by name — told her that Trump had on March 24 announced to his "inner circle, including members of his Cabinet" that Musk would be "stepping back in the coming weeks."
One of Bade's anonymous sources, whom she described as a "senior administration official," told her that Musk was not likely to fully remove himself from Trump's orbit, but would likely "retain an informal role as an adviser and continue to be an occasional face around the White House grounds."
Bade's reporting suggested that Musk's imminent departure was partly due to the fact that his 130-day stint as a special government employee would end "in late May or early June" — but also at least partly the result of worsening tensions between Musk and other individuals in the administration, whom Bade said increasingly saw Musk as a liability.
The same day, ABC News reported that "sources familiar with the matter" independently confirmed to them that Trump privately "indicated to top advisers that Elon Musk could be taking a step back from his current role in the administration."
Also on April 2, NBC News reported that a "senior White House official" told the organization Musk would "be leaving his government role in the coming months." NBC News' source reportedly noted that Trump shared the information in a cabinet meeting during the week of March 24, echoing what Politico's sources told Bade.
What has the White House said publicly?
Although White House officials have emphasized Musk's status as a special government employee in public statements, none of them has yet given a specific date on which Musk is expected to step down.
For example, during a Feb. 25 press briefing, Leavitt responded to a reporter who asked if the White House was planning to extend Musk's term as a special government employee by saying, starting around the 25:18 mark in the video below, "So, today is February 25th, so I think we've been here about 35 days, roughly, so ask me in another 100 days."
Around a month later, while signing an executive order in the Oval Office on March 31, Trump responded to a reporter who asked about Musk's 130-day limit by saying Musk would be going back to running his companies "at some point," but that he'd "keep him" as long as he could. In the same question-and-answer session, Trump also said that some DOGE employees might remain in their positions even after Musk leaves, but that "at a certain point it will end."
Trump's comments about Musk's term begin around the 31:54 mark below.
In the April 2 Politico article, Bade reported that Fields, the White House spokesperson, similarly refused to name a date for the end of Musk's role in the White House when she contacted him, instead saying, "Elon has been instrumental in executing the President's agenda, and will continue this good work until the President says otherwise."
Shortly after the Politico article went live, Leavitt reposted (archived) Bade's X post sharing the story, adding her own commentary:
This "scoop" is garbage.
Elon Musk and President Trump have both *publicly* stated that Elon will depart from public service as a special government employee when his incredible work at DOGE is complete.
In an appearance on "Fox and Friends" the morning of April 3, Vice President JD Vance echoed Leavitt's words by calling reports that Trump was sidelining Musk "total fake news." The relevant section starts around the 6:44 mark of the interview.
Vance also said that the administration and Musk both had always expected his DOGE role to last "about six months," and that "that's what Elon signed up for" — but also noted that "the work of DOGE is not even close to done. The work of Elon is not even close to done."
Vance did not give a specific date for when Musk would leave DOGE, but said that when he does, "Of course he's going to continue to be an adviser" to Trump.
What has Musk said?
Musk has largely echoed the official White House messaging about the length of his stint in the federal government. In a March 27 interview, around the 01:41 mark of the video below, Fox News' Bret Baier asked about the 130-day special government employee limit, saying, "You are supposed to be 130 days. Are you going to continue past that or do you think that's the — what are you going to do?"
Again without naming a specific date, Musk responded, "I think we will have accomplished most of the work required to reduce the deficit by a trillion dollars within that time frame."
On April 2, reposting Leavitt's rebuttal to the Politico story's implication that he was being pushed out by other members of the administration, Musk wrote (archived) on his official X account, "Yeah, fake news."
In sum …
Both the White House and Musk himself have been largely consistent — but vague — in their on-the-record messaging about Musk's eventual departure from his role as a special government employee in the Trump administration. Rather than giving an exact date, Trump, Leavitt, Fields and Musk have all maintained that Musk will return to the private sphere when his work with DOGE is finished, without specifying when that might be.
However, Vance's April 3 "Fox and Friends" statements implied that Musk would continue to advise Trump even after he leaves DOGE — something Bade, in her Politico article, also reported her anonymous sources told her.
In other words, even if Musk indeed steps down from DOGE when his 130-day stint as a special government employee is expected to come to an end in late May or early June, as numerous reporters and internet users have speculated, there's reason to believe he might continue to work with the Trump administration in another capacity.