Trump: Musk 'Really Not Leaving'

President Trump gave Elon Musk a friendly sendoff on Friday as the latter leaves his DOGE role to focus more on his businesses. But Musk is "really not leaving," said Trump, per the Washington Post. "He's going to be back and forth, I think."

• 'Colossal:' Speaking in the Oval Office, Trump credited Musk and the Department of Government Efficiency with triggering a "colossal change in the old ways of doing business in Washington," per the AP.
• Or maybe not: A Reuters analysis, however, finds that while Musk entered his government role with a promise of making $2 trillion in cuts, "a handful of the agencies he has targeted trimmed their combined spending by about $19 billion compared with the same period last year." Relative to government spending, that amounts to a "trim with scissors," the analysis concludes.

• Bogeyman: Musk, for his part, complained that critics blamed DOGE for everything that went wrong in DC. "We became essentially the DOGE bogeyman," he said when asked about the fierce backlash. "It just became a bit ridiculous."
• A shiner: The Hill notes an oddity: Musk had a bit of a black eye on Friday. He blamed it on his young son X, who he said accidentally hit him while they were horsing around.

(More President Trump stories.)