【Wen/Observer Net, Yuan Jiaqi】

If he could go back to the day of January 20th this year, when Trump was sworn in as president, would he still choose to lead the US Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE)?

This question clearly hit Musk's nerve: he sighed heavily, looked away from the camera, and gave a bitter answer, "No, I wouldn't."

Screenshot from the podcast video

According to CBS, on October 10th, the American tech billionaire rarely publicly discussed his experience in the White House half a year after stepping down as head of DOGE.

In an episode of a podcast interview released on Tuesday, Musk told host Katie Miller that under his leadership, the work done by DOGE in saving taxpayer money "had some effect but not much." Katie Miller was a former aide to the Trump administration, and her husband is the current White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller.

"We had a little bit of success," he said. The work "stopped a large amount of funds being allocated for meaningless and purely wasteful purposes," "I think most of the time I couldn't believe I was there. At the time, everything seemed very surreal,"

But when Katie directly asked him if he would have joined DOGE again if he could go back in time, Musk looked indifferent for a moment, then admitted, "I think, if I could do it over, I wouldn't have taken over DOGE, but instead would have focused all my energy on my own company business."

"In that case, there wouldn't have been any car burning incidents," he added. U.S. media pointed out that this refers to a series of arson and deliberate destruction incidents suffered by Tesla dealers after government spending was cut.

Katie empathetically replied, "You really gave up a lot for that." "Yes..." Musk sighed again.

He continued, saying that if the flow of money to channels of political corruption were cut off, "the other side would definitely make a big fuss."

Katie then asked whether his experience in Washington had left him disillusioned with how it works.

Musk didn't hesitate this time and quickly responded, "Actually, I didn't have too many expectations from the beginning." This sentence made Katie laugh.

According to The Beast Daily, DOGE officially announced its dissolution in November this year, eight months earlier than planned. The department claimed to have saved hundreds of billions of dollars in government spending, but U.S. media revealed that federal spending within its jurisdiction actually increased by $220 billion during the fiscal year.

The report also pointed out that after the DOGE controversy subsided, Musk had previously described his White House experience as a "fun side quest" in an interview, but this was the first time he admitted that the experience was not only meaningless but also caused significant damage to him, even ruining his reputation.

As Musk left the White House in May, the dramatic split of the "Trump-Musk alliance" also took place: they had a fierce dispute over the "Big and Beautiful Act", and Trump once angrily threatened to cancel federal contracts of Musk's companies, while Musk said he planned to form the "American Party" to oppose the Republicans.

Until September, the two met in public for the first time after their open split at the funeral of Charlie Kirk. Musk posted a photo with Trump on social media, captioning it "For Charlie." Since then, their relationship seemed to improve, and in November, Musk visited the White House and attended a dinner with the Saudi Crown Prince.

Last week, when asked if Musk was "back in the group," Trump said, "I really like Elon," while hinting that their differences stemmed from the cut in electric vehicle subsidies, "I think we get along well."

In Katie's blog program, Musk also rated Trump as the "funniest person" he knew.

He mentioned Trump's interaction with New York's elected mayor, Jhalan Mammadani, saying, "He (Trump) has a great sense of humor, a natural kind of wit, effortless."

Musk referred to the scene last month when Trump met with Democratic Mayor Mammadani in the White House Oval Office. The former rivals appeared quite affectionate in front of the cameras: Trump shook hands with Mammadani multiple times and lightly patted his hand, occasionally touching or tapping his arm, "in a fatherly manner."

And with the help of the EU, Trump and Musk's relationship has recently even warmed up a bit.

Recently, the EU fined Musk's social media platform X 120 million euros (about 140 million U.S. dollars). This was the first penalty issued by the EU under the Digital Services Act, causing strong dissatisfaction from the U.S. government.

When asked about the EU's huge fine against X, on December 8th, Trump said in the White House, "I think it's wrong," and criticized the EU, "they are heading towards some very bad directions."

"Watch, Europe must be very careful," Trump told reporters, "they are doing a lot of things. We hope to keep Europe as Europe. But Europe is heading towards some bad directions. It's very bad for the people, very bad."

He continued, "We don't want Europe to change too much. They are heading towards some very bad directions."

Trump added that Musk hadn't called him to ask for help, but he would later look into more details about the matter.

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Original: toutiao.com/article/7582145504478364187/

Statement: This article represents the personal views of the author.