Despite Musk's apparent plans to step back from DOGE, he made several appearances in DC this week, including in the Oval Office and on Capitol Hill.

His pet project, DOGE, has failed to deliver any real savings and basically just caused havoc in the federal government. For instance, their recent foray into the Social Security Administration has resulted in massive delays of service while finding essentially no fraud:

Musk brought a spotlight to DOGE. Leaving may let it slip to the shadows. Elon Musk isn’t as publicly, obviously involved in Washington as he used to be, that much is clear. But celebrations of his political exile are premature.