Elon Musk listens as reporters ask U.S. President Donald Trump and South Africa President Cyril Ramaphosa questions during a press availability in the Oval Office at the White House on May 21, 2025 in Washington, DC.
Chip Somodevilla | Getty Images
In its bid to have a lawsuit against Elon Musk, the Department of Government Efficiency and President Donald Trump dismissed, the White House had “unsuccessfully” tried to define Musk’s role in the federal government as temporary, a district court judge in Washington, D.C., said in an order out Tuesday.
A group of 14 states, led by New Mexico, had sued Musk, DOGE and Trump in February for allegedly violating the Constitution. The states’ attorneys general argued that Musk lacked the legal authority to make sweeping cuts and other changes to the federal government because he is not a Senate-confirmed officer of the government, and DOGE was never authorized by Congress.
Attorneys for the White House, in a motion they filed hoping to have the case dismissed, characterized Musk as holding an advisory and temporary job in the Trump administration only.
The judge in the federal court, Tanya Chutkan, found that Musk’s reach extendS throughout the executive branch without any known limits, even though the White House had tried to “minimize Musk’s role, framing him as a mere advisor without any formal authority.”
Judge Chutkan wrote that the 14 states made a credible argument that the tech billionaire and Trump megadonor now “occupies a continuing position” and “exercises significant authority,” all without “proper appointment” by Congress.
She also wrote that the states’ allegations that DOGE had gained “unauthorized access” to “private and proprietary information” were “sufficient to allege an injury,” and that the case can move forward.
Citing his mission as one of fiscal discipline, Musk has led the DOGE effort to eliminate certain federal offices, slash regulations, and rapidly cut down the federal workforce, while reprogramming or removing some government websites, software and systems.
Judge Chutkan decided that Trump could be dismissed as a defendant in the case, writing on Tuesday that the court “may not enjoin the President in the performance of his official duties.” The president does have “highly discretionary” power, she wrote, to select and nominate officers under the Appointments Clause of the U.S. Constitution.
Tesla CEO Elon Musk reacts while wearing a cap with the words “Gulf of America” as he attends a cabinet meeting held by U.S. President Donald Trump at the White House in Washington, D.C., U.S., April 30, 2025.
Evelyn Hockstein | Reuters
With his official stint in government coming to an end, Elon Musk thanked President Donald Trump on Wednesday for “the opportunity to reduce wasteful spending.”
Since joining the second Trump administration at the beginning of the term in January, Musk has led the Department of Government Efficiency, tasked with slashing the size of the federal government.
As a so-called special government employee, Musk can work for the administration for 130 days in a calendar year. The end of May marks 130 days since Trump’s inauguration.
“The @DOGE mission will only strengthen over time as it becomes a way of life throughout the government,” Musk wrote.
A White House official who was granted anonymity to describe personnel matters confirmed Musk’s departure and said he will begin offboarding Wednesday night.
Musk was critical of Trump’s spending bill that’s making its way through Congress, saying in a CBS interview set to air June 1 that it “undermines the work that the DOGE team is doing.”
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Musk, the world’s richest person, is CEO of Tesla, SpaceX and artificial intelligence startup xAI. Musk said this week that he plans to focus more on his businesses.
On a Tesla earnings call in April, Musk said that his time spent running DOGE would drop significantly by the end of May. On the same call, he said that he would still spend a “day or two per week” on government work until the end of Trump’s term.
Musk has also said he plans to keep his small office at the White House.
During his first 100 days working with the Trump administration, Musk said in an interview with Fox Digital News that he had worked in Washington, D.C. on his DOGE initiative “7 days a week, or close to 7 days a week.”
Legal risks are now building up for Musk with myriad cases filed in the U.S. alleging that he violated federal laws while leading DOGE.
On Wednesday, pension fund leaders sent a letter to Tesla’s board saying that they should require Musk to put in 40 hours per week, at a minimum, at the EV maker as a condition to attain any future CEO pay package.
Elon Musk interviews on CNBC from the Tesla Headquarters in Texas.
CNBC
Elon Musk needs to spend more time at Tesla as his electric vehicle company faces a “crisis,” according to a letter on Wednesday from a group of pension fund leaders who manage investments in the company.
“Tesla’s stock price volatility, declining sales, as well as disconcerting reports regarding the company’s human rights practices, and a plummeting global reputation are cause for serious concern,” the investors wrote in a letter to Robyn Denholm, the company’s board chair. “Moreover, many issues are linked to Mr. Musk’s actions outside of his role as Technoking and Chief Executive Officer at Tesla, including his high-profile role as an architect of the U.S. Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).”
The investors want the Tesla board to require Musk to work a minimum of 40 hours per week at the automaker as a condition of any new compensation plan they may arrange for him. They also want a clear succession plan for management of the EV business, and a policy that would apply to all Tesla directors limiting their outside board commitments at public and private companies.
Early last year, the Delaware Court of Chancery ordered Tesla to rescind Musk’s 2018 CEO pay package, which had been worth around $56 billion, finding that Musk controlled the company, and the board’s compensation committee misled shareholders before seeking their vote to approve the plan.
Musk now says he wants even more shares, amounting to 25% voting control of the company.
Tesla’s brand value and reputation have declined since 2024, due largely to Musk‘s incendiary rhetoric and political activities. In addition to pouring nearly $300 million into an effort to get Donald Trump back into the White House, Musk formally endorsed Germany’s far-right AfD party ahead of the country’s parliamentary election this year.
At DOGE, Musk has led an initiative by the Trump administration to slash federal agencies.
Tesla once ranked eighth among the most popular American brands in the Axios Harris Poll of public perceptions of the 100 most visible U.S. companies. But recently, Tesla dropped to 95th, behind six other automakers in that poll.
Tesla’s stock price is down 12% this year, while the Nasdaq is down just 1%.
Data this week revealed that Tesla’s monthly sales across Europe plunged by nearly half in April compared to the same time last year. That trend extends the steep declines Tesla saw in the first quarter.
The investors who signed Wednesday’s letter own about 7.9 million shares in the company combined. They blamed a Tesla board that’s “unwilling to act in the best interest of all Tesla shareholders” by requiring Musk’s “full-time attention” on the company.
Musk said this week that he plans to focus more on his businesses, which include xAI and SpaceX in addition to Tesla.
Those who signed the letter included the pro-labor SOC Investment Group, American Federation of Teachers, New York City Comptroller Brad Lander and Oregon State Treasurer Elizabeth Steiner.
The investors asked Tesla to add at least one new independent director with no personal ties to other board members. Tesla earlier this month said former Chipotle CFO Jack Hartung will join the company’s board. Hartung previously worked with Musk’s brother and Tesla board member Kimbal Musk, who was a board member at the Mexican food chain.
Tesla didn’t respond to a request for comment in response to the letter.
Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg appears at the Meta Connect event in Menlo Park, California, on Sept. 25, 2024.
David Paul Morris | Bloomberg | Getty Images
Meta’s AI assistant now has 1 billion monthly active users across the company’s family of apps, CEO Mark Zuckerberg said Wednesday at the company’s annual shareholder meeting.
The “focus for this year is deepening the experience and making Meta AI the leading personal AI with an emphasis on personalization, voice conversations and entertainment,” Zuckerberg said.
The artificial intelligent assistant’s 1 billion milestone comes after the company in April released a standalone app for the tool.
The plan is for Meta to keep growing the product before building a business around it, Zuckerberg said on Wednesday. As Meta AI improves overtime, Zuckerberg said “there will be opportunities to either insert paid recommendations” or offer “a subscription service so that people can pay to use more compute.”
In February, CNBC reported that Meta was planning to debut a standalone Meta AI app during the second quarter and test a paid-subscription service akin to rival chat apps like OpenAI’s ChatGPT.
“It may seem kind of funny that a billion monthly actives doesn’t seem like it’s at scale for us, but that’s where we’re at,” Zuckerberg told shareholders.
During the Meta shareholder meeting, investors voted on 14 different items related to the company’s business, nine of which were shareholder proposals covering topics such as child safety, greenhouse gas emissions and a proposed bitcoin treasury assessment.
Shareholder proposal 8, for example, was submitted by JLens, which is an investment advisor and affiliate of the Anti-Defamation League, and called for Meta to prepare an annual report detailing and addressing hate content, including antisemitism, on its services following January policy changes that relaxed content-moderation guidelines.
Early voting results on Wednesday showed the proposals that Meta’s board did not recommend were unlikely to pass, including one calling for the company to end its dual-class share structure, which gives Zuckerberg significant voting power. Meanwhile, the voting items that the board favored, including those pertaining to approving the company’s board of director nominees and an equity incentive plan, were likely to pass, based on the preliminary results.
Meta said final polling results will be released within four business days on the company’s website and the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.