White House Senior Advisor Elon Musk walks to the White House after landing in Marine One on the South Lawn with U.S. President Donald Trump (not pictured) on March 9, 2025 in Washington, DC.
Samuel Corum | Getty Images
DOGE chief Elon Musk said Monday that he is running his businesses “with great difficulty,” as shares of his automotive firm Tesla suffered their worst drop in a half-decade, and as his social media company X experienced several outages.
Musk also said during an interview on Fox Business that he expected to remain in the Trump administration for another year.
Tesla’s stock has fallen every week since Musk joined the Trump administration as head of the Department of Government Efficiency, which is engaged in a broad, controversial effort to reduce federal government spending and employee headcount. The electric vehicle company has lost more than 50% of its market capitalization, equal to nearly $800 billion.
On Monday, Musk said there are currently more than 100 people on DOGE’s team. He said that the number of DOGE staffers might increase to 200.
“Unless we’re stopped, we will get to $1 trillion of savings,” Musk predicted.
In addition to Tesla and X, Musk’s other businesses include the space exploration company SpaceX and the neurotechnology company Neuralink.
In Monday’s interview, Fox Business host Larry Kudlow said that as head of DOGE, “You’re giving up your other stuff.”
“How are you running your other businesses?” Kudlow asked.
Musk replied, “With great difficulty,” and chuckled.
“Yeah, I mean,” Musk sighed.
“I’m just here trying to make government more efficient, eliminate waste and fraud, and so far we’re making good progress, actually,” he said. “Our savings at this point exceed $4 billion a day. So it’s very significant.”
Tesla shares close regular trading down more than 15.4% on Monday
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