President Donald Trump invited Elon Musk to stay in his administration as long as he wants – an invitation the came as the Tesla founder is on his way out the door. ‘You know you’re invited to stay as long as you want. At some point, I guess he wants to get back home to his cars,’ Trump said during his Cabinet meeting on Wednesday. Musk praised the president’s accomplishments in his first 100 days in the White House and then joked about his own government service: ‘They say I wear a lot of hats. It’s true. Even my hat has a hat.’

He gestured to the two hats on his head. Trump had placed red hats reading the ‘Gulf of America’ around the table for his Cabinet secretaries. Musk, the world’s richest man, spent part of the meeting fiddling with the hats. He adjusted a Gulf of America hat to make it large enough to fit over the black DOGE hat he was wearing.

That left him wearing two hats, one on top of another. Trump praised Musk’s fashion choices. ‘Elon, I love the double hat, by the way. He’s the only who can do that and get away with it.’ The SpaceX founder is quietly stepping away from his official role with the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) – the controversial task force slashing spending across the federal government.

Trump praised him on his way out the door. ‘You have been treated unfairly, but the vast majority of people in this country really respect and appreciate you, and this whole room can say that very strong really been a tremendous help. You opened up a lot of eyes as to what can be done. And we just want to thank you very much,’ the president said. It sounded like farewell remarks. And the entire room applauded after Trump finished.

The Cabinet meeting had the feel of a goodbye party with officials who had clashed with Musk praising his work, cracking jokes and engaging in awkward laughter. Specifically Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Transportation Secretary Sean Duff, who had clashed with Musk over cuts to their work force, joked with him as they presented their reports. Rubio publicly praised Musk’s work.

‘We went out and hired a consulting firm to help us organize ourselves. Luckily, they were free. They’re called the Department of Government Efficiency,’ he said as the room laughed. The secretary of state and Musk, previously, fought behind closed doors. Rubio was one of the Cabinet secretaries who urged the president to rein Musk in. Duffy slammed Musk for firing air traffic controllers as his agency faced a shortage.

But he had a different tune on Wednesday, smiling and joking at DOGE chief. Duffy noted his Transportation Department was changing CAFE standards to ‘bring it down to something more reasonable.’ The he joked to Musk, the founder of Tesla: ‘I hope Elon is fine with that.’ Again, awkward laughter filled the room.

Musk’s presence at Trump’s fifth Cabinet meeting was a remarkable change from his first time sitting at the head. In the first Cabinet meeting, Musk spoke before any other secretary and held forth for several minutes on DOGE’s work. On Wednesday, Musk waited his turn to talk as Trump went around the table, asking each secretary to give their report.

It could be a sign of Musk’s diminishing influence. For the first several months of Trump’s second term, Elon Musk was everywhere – briefing Trump personally, gutting federal departments, and boldly promising to slash the federal deficit by $1 trillion, a figure he vowed to halve by the end of the fiscal year. But last week he announced he was stepping back.

His 130-day mandate as a special government employee is set to expire at the end of May but he told share holders on the Tesla owner call that he was winding down his time in the government. ‘Starting next month, I will be allocating far more of my time to Tesla,’ he said. ‘The major work of establishing [DOGE] has been completed.’

Musk’s aggressive slash and burn style – closing multiple government agencies and firing approximately 200,000 federal works – also caused major backlashes to his businesses. It grew bad that vandals began targeting Tesla cars and holding demonstrations outside of showrooms. Telsa reported its earnings down as Musk’s work for Trump was criticized.

Want more stories like this from the Daily Mail? Visit our profile page and hit the follow button above for more of the news you need.