Elon Musk told The Economist on July 23 that he "got a little too involved" in politics during his time running the Department of Government Efficiency, and that he has no plans to do anything like it again. The admission is a rare one for a billionaire who spent the first half of 2025 trying to reshape the US federal government with the same urgency most founders reserve for a failing product launch.
DOGE ran from early 2025 until Musk stepped down in May, a roughly five-month window during which more than 211,000 federal employees left their positions. The program claimed around $160 billion in savings, though whether any of that actually reduced the deficit has never been independently verified. The initiative was originally scoped to run through July 2026. It dissolved as a centralized body by late 2025, months ahead of that deadline, without the structural overhaul its backers had promised. Musk himself called the effort "somewhat successful" on a podcast in December 2025, which is the kind of qualifier that says more than it appears to.
Dogecoin didn't care
The interview produced no meaningful movement in Dogecoin's price. No spike, no selloff. Traders seem to have quietly separated Musk's public statements from the coin's price action over the past year. The meme connection is still very much alive on social media, but the financial reflex that used to follow his tweets appears to be fading. Markets, it turns out, get bored of a pattern once it stops paying out.
For Tesla and SpaceX, the calculus looks different. Both companies spent 2025 absorbing the reputational drag from Musk's political visibility, including protests, boycotts, and a persistent narrative that the CEO's attention was elsewhere. A genuine recommitment to those businesses could matter to shareholders in a way that no Dogecoin tweet ever would. Musk also discussed artificial intelligence during the Economist interview, a topic increasingly tangled up with crypto through AI-focused tokens and decentralized compute networks now drawing serious institutional scrutiny.
The 211,000 federal workers who exited during DOGE's run probably have a sharper view of all this than any crypto desk does. But the market priced in Musk's political detour a long time ago and moved on.
This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute financial advice. Always do your own research before making investment decisions.
