Elon Musk has said he became too involved in politics during his alliance with Donald Trump and his leadership of the so-called Department of Government Efficiency (Doge), saying he should instead have focused on his companies. The admission matters because Musk was a major financial supporter of Trump’s 2024 campaign and played a prominent role in controversial federal spending cuts and job losses, while still presenting himself as politically influential.

In an Economist interview, Musk said he gave Trump $200m in backing and that Doge oversaw $150bn in budget reductions and tens of thousands of federal job losses. He also made ambitious predictions that AI could exceed total human intelligence within five years, make work optional and render money meaningless within a decade; separately, he predicted the UK could face civil war within 20 years, reflecting his continued focus on immigration and race.