Elon Musk's crusade to take a chainsaw to the federal government burned hot and fast. It lurched through five months of mass firings, court fights and screaming matches with Donald Trump’s cabinet.
Just before it ended on a Thursday night in May 2025, the world's richest man pulled a lightning-bolt-shaped bottle of Tesla Tequila from his cramped West Wing office and poured shots into plastic cups for a dozen of his top deputies.
Days later Musk was out of the administration. Within a week, he and Trump were at war, a feud that ran from 'disgusting abomination' to Epstein posts to whispered accusations of drug abuse.
Days before Musk left DOGE, he pulled a lightning-bolt-shaped bottle of Tesla Tequila from his cramped West Wing office and poured shots into plastic cups for a dozen of his top deputies
Almost every former DOGE staffer has since scrubbed their profile and gone quiet.
But one of his most senior lieutenants has now broken ranks with a tell-all memoir, obtained exclusively by the Daily Mail, that reveals the toast was really a goodbye. None of them knew it at the time.
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