WASHINGTON - Elon Musk said Wednesday that he is retreating from the government's efficiency ministry to focus on his business.

"Now, we're getting more rhythm," Musk told reporters at the White House on Wednesday night. “So I spend much less time here and I can go back to running my company primarily, which really requires me.”

Musk's Tesla company reported a sharp drop in profits and revenue in the first quarter.

Musk said during the first three months of President Donald Trump’s administration, when he occasionally slept at the White House at Trump’s invitation - he now hopes to work on the Doge project just one or two days a week and will be in Washington every other week.

The transformation will be a major change. Musk has always had a temporary role around the White House. He and his team have extraordinary powers over the federal sector, sometimes helpless with the actual responsible cabinet members. He has been a lightning rod for Trump critics who use him as an election bogey.

He said he was confident that Dodge could move on without his direct daily involvement, but he repeatedly refused to say who would replace him.

"It's a way of life, just like Buddhism," Musk said. "You won't ask who will lead Buddhism."

Musk told reporters that he intends to keep the “ridiculous little office” he allocated on the top floor of the West Wing, and he admits he occasionally plays video games and exile roads on a large monitor he connects to his computer.

Trump said Musk was called a couch-crazy when traveling, he called a "good friend" and sometimes invited him to stay in the Lincoln bedroom in the White House, especially when he was late from the trip.

Musk laughed, “He actually called late at night and said, ‘Oh, make sure you get some ice cream from the kitchen.’

Musk and several of his top lieutenants outlined the success they saw in their first 100 days of success and tried to oppose some of the group's criticism. They claim they have less than 100 employees, some of whom will stay and others will not. Musk labeled it "basically a volunteer organization."

The Governor’s team claimed to have saved the federal government $160 billion so far, believing that “but for Doge’s behavior” government spending will be higher in fiscal 2026, a figure that is nearly impossible to fact-check.

Doge's report on his work is full of false and misleading claims. Its savings figures have not taken into account job-related expenses, including legal expenses, salary and money used to make some massive changes.

When asked about his initial statement, Musk said that the target was still "probable" when it said it was going to cut at least $1 trillion in spending, but said "there's a long way."

"You know how much pain the cabinet is, is Congress willing to bear it?" he asked. “Because this can be done, but there are a lot of complaints to be processed.”

Musk put pressure on the duplicate claims of fraud in government payment programs, including Social Security and small business management loans, and he believes the Justice Department cannot prosecute all instances of fraud, including what Doge calls “fraud rings” his team has discovered — and his team has focused heavily on closing technical misunderstandings, which were deprived of by criminals. This includes relatively simple fixes, such as adding the "Date of Birth" field on the SBA loan application page.

While programs like Social Security do have fraud, Musk and Moral also falsely claim that undocumented immigration has defrauded billions of dollars worth of rights as part of the Democratic voting plan.

"The first thing you have to do is at least stop the fraud and then make sure at least a certain number of fraudsters are being prosecuted," Musk said.

Longtime Musk adviser and friend Antonio Gracias, who also worked with Doge, told reporters that Doge has handed over 57 voter fraud cases to the Justice Department.

Gracias said the people were “resident foreigners who were registered to vote and who could vote in the election.”

"We are not sure," he added. "We mentioned the case."

Asked about the technical support provided by Musk to the federal government, Musk pointed out that the overhaul of the country's air traffic control system, which is still ongoing work, and an upgrade to the White House's own Internet, provided by Musk-owned company Starlink.

NBC News confirmed that NBC News had completed its upgrade when the assistant provided a reporter with passwords to White House Wi-Fi and logged into high-speed services.