As Musk winds down at DOGE, he returns to a business empire flush with opportunities and fewer investigations—but new reputational challenges.

For axing the parts of the federal bureaucracy he didn’t like, Musk has earned a cushy second act — as the recipient of sweetheart deals from foreign governments looking to gain favor with the president.

President Donald Trump, Elon Musk and the ruling Republican party promised us all $1 trillion a year in free budget savings by cutting out the “waste, fraud and abuse” that were supposedly rampant across the federal bureaucracy.