Elon Musk has announced that he will be reducing his involvement with Donald Trump's Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) from next month, choosing instead to concentrate more on Tesla.

The 53 year old entrepreneur is currently wrestling with a slump in Tesla's sales, which saw quarterly profits plummet by 71% to £308million. This downturn is partially attributed to the tariffs imposed by the Trump administration.

From May onwards, Musk's commitment to his friend's government department will "drop significantly". He plans to dedicate "a day or two per week" to governmental matters "for as long as the president would like me to do so." However, Musk's leadership of a federal government group tasked with job cuts has sparked controversy and divided public opinion. Tesla's revenue dipped by 9% to $19.3billion in the first quarter of the year, falling short of Wall Street predictions.

Tesla's shares have taken a hit this year, dropping over 40%, although they did see a slight increase in after-hours trading. The company's stock value has been rocked by the overall financial market instability triggered by global trade war tariffs, stiff competition from Chinese EV manufacturer BYD, and doubts over Musk's ability to devote the necessary attention to Tesla, reports The Mirror.

Ahead of an investor call on Tuesday evening, Musk's position as CEO of the company was one of the most frequently raised topics in a question-and-answer portal for shareholders. After pouring almost £226million into the 2024 campaign to secure Trump's return to the Oval Office, Elon Musk set up DOGE and took up a role in the administration aimed at significantly downsizing the federal government.

DOGECoin's official site, last updated on Sunday, claims that its measures have resulted in an estimated £120billion in savings. Nonetheless, the accuracy of Mr Musk's savings projections has been called into question, with DOGE having scrubbed some of the most substantial alleged savings from their records.

Last month, President Trump made a statement by purchasing a Tesla from Musk, a move intended to confront those critics advocating for a boycott of the electric car company, declaring on X: "To Republicans, Conservatives, and all great Americans, Elon Musk is 'putting it on the line' in order to help our nation, and he is doing a FANTASTIC JOB!"

He went on to say: "But the radical left lunatics, as they often do, are trying to illegally and collusively boycott Tesla, one of the world's great automakers, and Elon's 'baby', in order to attack and do harm to Elon, and everything he stands for. They tried to do it to me at the 2024 Presidential Ballot Box, but how did that work out? In any event, I'm going to buy a brand new Tesla tomorrow morning as a show of confidence and support for Elon Musk, a truly great American."