Musk's rocket-fuelled ride with Trump flames out

ELON Musk stormed into US politics as US President Donald Trump’s chainsaw-brandishing sidekick. Four turbulent months later, it’s the tech tycoon himself on the chopping block.

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Trump hailed Musk as “terrific” as he announced that they would hold a joint press conference yesterday as the South African-born magnate left the so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).

“This will be his last day, but not really, because he will, always, be with us, helping all the way,” Trump said on his Truth Social network on Thursday.

But the warm words could not hide the open frustrations that Musk, the world’s richest man, had expressed in recent weeks about his controversial cost-cutting role for the world’s most powerful man.

Once a fixture at the Republican president's side, dressed in T-shirts and MAGA baseball caps, Musk had shown growing disillusionment with the obstacles faced by DOGE even as it cut a brutal swath through the US bureaucracy.

He leaves far short of his original goal of saving $2 trillion (R25.7 trillion), with The Atlantic magazine calculating he saved just one thousandth of that, despite tens of thousands of people losing their jobs.

Instead he will focus on his Space X and Tesla businesses, as well as his goal of colonising Mars.