Elon Musk's departure proves no one lasts long in the spotlight beside Donald Trump

Businessman Elon Musk and Donald Trump have had an acrimonious parting of the ways and while there may be no winner in their war of words, there is only one US President at a time. AFP

Last year, the world's richest man, Elon Musk, lavished hundreds of millions of dollars on the presidential campaign of then-candidate Donald Trump, in a transparent effort to translate his vast wealth into personal political power. After Mr Trump returned to the White House, with Mr Musk in tow, it seemed that was indeed happening.

Mr Musk was such a regular fixture in the White House that there was even silly talk of a co-presidency. But now the billionaire is gone, unlikely to return to the Washington halls of power.

In truth, Mr Musk's tenure at the "Department of Government Efficiency" could have been better at its purported tax-cutting mission. Its goal, Mr Musk boasted in the lead-up to the election, was to save the federal government $2 trillion, though he later revised that figure to $1tn.

Elon Musk appears with black eye at White House farewell

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Yet despite pulling out chainsaws on stage and gloating over the mass sackings of eminent, respectable and dedicated public servants, not to mention the gutting of crucial public and human service programmes, he barely made a dent in the federal budget. The most charitable calculation of the actual “savings” incurred to date is around $175 billion, though Doge has published evidence purported to substantiate less than half of this.

Mr Musk seems especially proud of the de facto shuttering of the US Agency for International Development and the elimination of many of its key humanitarian programmes. Although Secretary of State Marco Rubio spent much of last week denying that anyone has died because of the elimination of these crucial programmes, some experts think that the only real question is only whether these deaths, in only a few weeks, must be counted in the thousands, tens of thousands, or hundreds of thousands.

Journalists and Democratic lawmakers have pointed out specific cases, such as individually named orphaned children in rural Africa who were depending for survival on HIV medicine that was suddenly yanked away by the world's richest man. They’re now verifiably and needlessly dead.

Despite pulling out chainsaws on stage and gloating over the mass sackings of public servants, Mr Musk barely made a dent in the federal budget

There are many other examples. But, as one Republican Senator, Joni Ernst, told constituents worried about their own health care last week: "Well, we are all going to die." That's as true of an impoverished African orphan as anyone else, from the point of view of a millionaire US senator or billionaire venture capitalist.

Apart from the decimation of programmes and mass dismissal of public servants, Mr Musk's tenure provided the public with a close look at his lifestyle. It is inspiring to those who think people ought to have more children. He has been energetically promoting large families, in both theory and in practice.

He has denied reports from The New York Times that he regularly consumed illegal drugs and amphetamines like Adderall. It might be unfair to speculate that as he was reshaping US government, Mr Musk was frequently in an altered state of consciousness. But we do know that Mr Musk and his crew had, with minimal oversight, access to the most sensitive data on not just public employees and the government, but taxpayers and the general public. The fate of this data is unknown.

Mr Musk's tenure at the 'Department of Government Efficiency' could have been better at its purported tax-cutting mission. AFP

An even more troubling reality is that his activities were unsupervised, unconfirmed and unvetted. He had no security clearance, or even a security clearance investigation. Mr Musk's Washington adventure illustrates exactly why the founders of the American republic insisted the Senate needed to confirm all senior appointees. This has become an increasingly marginalised procedure, but the wisdom of this check has been amply illustrated by the Musk-Trump transactional relationship.

While the two still praise each other, the actual chasm between them grows ever wider. Mr Musk has been increasingly vocal in condemning the "big, beautiful budget bill" that the Republican-dominated Senate is trying to pass at Mr Trump's behest. The billionaire says it is the antithesis of everything he was trying to do, since it may greatly increase the federal budget. He could never say any such thing if he were still connected to the White House.

Mr Trump increasingly had little time for his billionaire former buddy. You could see it coming from the very outset. The administration could not contain two alpha males, and Washington was never going to be big enough for both of them.

The only surprise is that Mr Musk lasted as long as he did. No one lasts too long in the spotlight next to Mr Trump.