Elon Musk 'wants to leave' US politics because of 'attacks from the left' - but people aren't buying it

It’s fair to say things haven’t been easy for billionaire Elon Musk since he agreed to serve under US president Donald Trump’s administration. Tesla’s share price continues to plummet amid global protests against Musk’s links to the presidency, his attempt to get all federal employees to email him five things they did in the week back in February backfired, and Trump has already talked about exactly when he’ll be “going back” to his other businesses.

And now, it seems Musk wants out, as The Washington Post has cited comments from a source “familiar with [Musk’s] thinking” who said the entrepreneur is “ready to exit because he is tired of fielding what he views as a slew of nasty and unethical attacks from the political left”.

While it is not known when exactly the head of the Department of Government Efficiency (or Doge) will leave the Trump administration, the Post notes that his special government employee status is expected to expire at the end of next month.

After the news broke, people on social media didn't exactly have much sympathy for Musk.

One user wrote: "So, Elon Musk is reportedly leaving politics. He can’t take anymore 'attacks from the left'.
"He brought it all on himself."

The Anonymous account, which has more than five million followers, added: "Boo hoo poor Elon, he really thinks he can just walk away after the damage he did..."

One more said: "Don't let the door hit you on the way out."

And as mentioned above, the president himself has indicated that Musk’s time might soon be up, as he recently told reporters that while he thinks the Tesla boss is “amazing”, he also thinks “he’s got a big company to run and so at some point, he’s going to be going back”.

Not long after this, Musk spoke critically of Trump’s global tariffs and expressed his desire to see a “zero tariff situation” – comments social media users jokingly took as a ‘soft launch’ of the pair’s “breakup” or “divorce”.

He’s also been urged to quit Doge by analyst Dan Ives, who wrote in a report on Sunday that the businessman “needs to leave the government, take a major step back on DOGE, and get back to being CEO of Tesla full-time”.

And the Post’s report certainly echoes previous remarks made by Musk about the left, as he told Fox News last month that people “basically want to kill me” over the work he is doing at Doge, where significant cuts have been made to the federal workforce.

““It turns out when you take away the money people are receiving fraudulently, they get very upset, and they basically want to kill me because I’m stopping their fraud, and they want to hurt Tesla, because we’re stopping this terrible waste and corruption in the government.

“I guess they’re bad people. Bad people do bad things,” he said.

Why not read…

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