Susie Wiles, chief of staff to Donald Trump, communicates with Musk by phone instead of in person.
Musk plans to focus more on Tesla, reducing his government role to two days a week.
Susie Wiles says she is talking to the Tesla billionaire on the phone instead of in person as he steps back from duties in government.
Elon Musk is working remotely after being forced to take a step back from his Department of Government Efficiency (Doge) amid Tesla’s plummeting profits.
The Tesla billionaire, who has previously called working from home “morally wrong”, has become an increasingly rare presence in Washington, turning his attention to his electric car business as its sales and profits drop.
Susie Wiles, chief of staff to President Donald Trump, told the New York Post that Musk “hasn’t been here physically, but it really doesn’t matter much”.
Wiles reportedly has a tense relationship with the efficiency tsar and denied him a White House office in the early days of the administration, instead installing him in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building across the street.
Once joined at the hip with Trump, Musk, the world’s richest man, has recently distanced himself from the US President’s tariffs policy and had blazing rows with Cabinet members and key advisers.
Last week, he said he would “significantly” reduce his work at Doge and “be allocating far more of my time to Tesla”, as its profits fell to a five-year low amid a boycott campaign.
The recent boycott plummeted Tesla's sales, forcing Musk to refocus his work. Photo / Getty Images
Musk suggested he would work at most, two days a week at the agency and stay on “as long as the President would like me to do so and as long as it’s useful”.
As part of his drive to cut US$1 trillion ($1.68t) from the federal deficit by 2026, he has attempted to force federal workers back into the office.
“Requiring federal employees to come to the office five days a week would result in a wave of voluntary terminations that we welcome: If federal employees don’t want to show up, American taxpayers shouldn’t pay them for the Covid-era privilege of staying home,” he wrote in an opinion column last year.
Even before entering the political sphere, he has been scathing about “work from home bulls***” and claimed it is “morally wrong”.
“Instead of meeting with him in person, I’m talking to him on the phone, but it’s the same net effect,” Wiles said, adding that he “hasn’t been here physically, but it really doesn’t matter much”, Wiles told the New York Post.
Referring to other members of Doge, who work out of the Eisenhower building and the General Services Administration, she said: “His folks aren’t going anywhere.”
‘He’s not abandoning work’
Musk is classed as a special government employee, meaning he can only serve 130 days a year in the administration.
“He’s not out of it altogether. He’s just not physically present as much as he was,” said Wiles, whom Trump has nicknamed the “Ice Maiden” for her cool-headed demeanour.
“The people that are doing this work are here doing good things and paying attention to the details. He’ll be stepping back a little, but he’s certainly not abandoning it. And his people are definitely not.”
Musk made a rare appearance in Washington on Wednesday (local time) at a Cabinet meeting, where he was wearing a cap emblazoned with the words “Gulf of America” over a second hat.
Tesla chief executive Elon Musk puts on a second hat that reads "Gulf of America" during a Cabinet meeting at the White House on April 30 in Washington, DC. Photo / Getty Images
“I wear a lot of hats. Even my hat has a hat,” Musk, who is the chief executive of Tesla, rocket company SpaceX and social media platform X.
As members of the Cabinet applauded, Trump said: “We just want to thank you very much. You’re invited to stay as long as you want, but at some point, he wants to go back home to his cars.”
