WASHINGTON (AP) 鈥 Elon Musk spent years building cachet as a business titan and tech visionary, brushing aside critics and skeptics to become the richest person on the planet.
But as Musk gained power in Washington in recent months, his popularity has waned, according to a poll from .
Just 33% of U.S. adults have a favorable view of Musk, the , , public face of President efforts to downsize and overhaul the federal government. That share is down from 41% in December.
鈥淚t was a shame that he crashed and burned his reputation,鈥 said Ernest Pereira, 27, a Democrat who works as a lab technician in North Carolina. 鈥淗e bought into his own hype.鈥
The poll found that about two-thirds of adults believe Musk has held too much influence over the federal government during the past few months 鈥 although that influence may be coming to an end. The billionaire entrepreneur is expected to leave his administration job in the coming weeks.
Musk is noticeably less popular than the overall effort to , which Trump has described as bloated and corrupt. About half of U.S. adults believe the Republican president has gone too far on reducing the size of the federal workforce, while roughly 3 in 10 think he is on target and 14% want him to go even further.
Retiree Susan Wolf, 75, of Pennsylvania, believes the federal government is too big but Musk has 鈥渕ade a mess of everything.鈥
鈥淚 don鈥檛 trust him,鈥 she said. 鈥淚 don鈥檛 think he knows what he鈥檚 doing.鈥
Wolf, who is not registered with a political party, said Musk鈥檚 private sector success does not translate to Washington.
鈥淗e thinks you run a government like you run a business. And you don鈥檛 do that,鈥 she said. 鈥淥ne is for the benefit of the people, and the other is for the benefit of the corporation.鈥
Much of the downsizing has been done through so-called , or DOGE, which was Musk鈥檚 brainchild during last year鈥檚 campaign. Thousands of federal employees have been fired or pushed to quit, contracts have been canceled and entire agencies have been brought to a standstill.
Musk has succeeded in providing a dose of shock therapy to the federal government, but he has fallen short of other goals. After talking about cutting spending by $1 trillion, he has set a much lower target of $150 billion. Even reaching that amount could prove challenging, and DOGE has regularly overstated its progress.
He is expected to start dedicating more time to Tesla, his electric automaker that has while he was working for Trump. Musk told investors on a recent conference call that 鈥渘ow that the major work of establishing the Department of Government Efficiency is done,鈥 he expects to spend just 鈥渁 day or two per week on government matters.鈥
Musk, in his work for the administration, has continued a political evolution toward the right. Although the South African-born entrepreneur was never easy to categorize ideologically, he championed the fight against climate change and often supported Democratic candidates.
Now he criticizes 鈥渢he woke mind virus鈥 and warns of the collapse of Western civilization from the threats of illegal migration and excess government spending.
Musk鈥檚 increasingly conservative politics are reflected in the polling. Only about 2 in 10 independents and about 1 in 10 Democrats view Musk favorably, compared with about 7 in 10 Republicans.
In addition, while about 7 in 10 independents and about 9 in 10 Democrats believe Musk has too much influence, only about 4 in 10 Republicans feel that way.
Mark Collins, 67, a warehouse manager from Michigan who has leaned Republican in recent years, said Musk 鈥渞uns a nice, tight ship鈥 at his companies, 鈥渁nd the government definitely needs tightening up.鈥
鈥淗e鈥檚 cleaning up all the trash,鈥 he said. 鈥淚 love what he鈥檚 doing.鈥
Republicans are much less likely than Democrats to be worried about being affected by recent cuts to federal government agencies, services or grants. Just 11% said they are 鈥渆xtremely鈥 or 鈥渧ery鈥 concerned that they or someone they know will be affected, while about two-thirds of Democrats and 44% of independents have those fears.
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The AP-NORC poll of 1,260 adults was conducted April 17-21, using a sample drawn from NORC鈥檚 probability-based AmeriSpeak Panel, which is designed to be representative of the U.S. population. The margin of sampling error for adults overall is plus or minus 3.9 percentage points.
