What Elon Musk did next
The Global Story
BBC
3.8 • 663 Ratings
🗓️ 7 May 2026
⏱️ 27 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
It’s been a year since billionaire tech entrepreneur Elon Musk left his informal position in President Trump’s White House in May 2025. But behind the scenes, Musk has been busy.
Musk has spent the last few weeks in a California courtroom, where he is suing his former business partner, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman. In January, Musk applied for permission with the US government to launch a million satellites into orbit, some of which he says will serve as solar AI data centres. And he is preparing to take his company SpaceX public, with an estimated valuation of over $1 trillion.
Though his political presence has waned, is it possible that Elon Musk is more powerful than ever? We speak to the BBC’s North America technology correspondent Lily Jamali about what the world’s richest man has been up to since leaving the White House.
Producers: Xandra Ellin and Valerio Esposito Executive producer: James Shield Mix: Travis Evans Senior news editor: China Collins
Photo: Elon Musk appears in the courthouse during the OpenAI trial. Credit: Reuters/Manuel Orbegozo
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | BBC Sounds, music, radio, podcasts. |
| 0:05.8 | So I'm going to ask if it's possible to have Elon get up first and talk about Doge because it seems to be of great interest to everyone. |
| 0:14.0 | That's President Trump speaking at the very first cabinet meeting of his second term back in February of 2025. |
| 0:20.6 | So, Elon, if you could get up and explain where you are, how you're doing, and how much we're |
| 0:25.7 | cutting, and it's an honor to have you. He's been a tremendously successful guy. |
| 0:30.3 | I remember this meeting quite well because I was actually there in the room as a journalist. |
| 0:35.7 | These were the days when I used to cover the White House for |
| 0:37.9 | NPR. |
| 0:38.5 | Thank you very much. Thank you, Mr. President. Well, I actually just put myself for a humble |
| 0:43.8 | tech support here because this is actually, as crazy as it sounds, that that is almost a |
| 0:52.6 | literal dispersion of the work that the Doge team is doing. |
| 0:55.5 | At the time, you probably recall that Musk was designated a special government employee |
| 0:59.9 | leading this Trump initiative called the Department of Government Efficiency, or Doge. |
| 1:04.8 | And Musk had grand plans to slash government spending, promising to reduce the federal deficit. |
| 1:10.6 | We do need to move quickly if we're to achieve a trillion dollar deficit reduction in |
| 1:17.7 | financial year 226. |
| 1:20.0 | It requires saving $4 billion per day every day from now through the end of September. |
| 1:26.7 | But we can do it and we will do it. |
| 1:28.8 | And sure, it was odd to hear from someone at a cabinet meeting who was technically not an |
| 1:33.3 | official member of the cabinet. But that wasn't what really struck me about this moment. |
| 1:37.9 | No, what struck me was the respect and deference that must command it in that room. |
| 1:43.4 | It's hard to remember now, but at the time, there was chatter in Washington about who was |
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