| Elon Musk over the past month has said he's stepping away from politics, but he hasn't really gone away. See his comments about President Donald Trump's "big, beautiful bill" making news today (and Trump's dismissal). Bloomberg Businessweek senior reporter Max Chafkin writes about all the demands on Musk's attention. Plus: YouTube moves into Hollywood's turf with longer videos. If this email was forwarded to you, click here to sign up. On Saturday, after days of complaints from users that they couldn't access X, the social network formerly known as Twitter, Elon Musk responded the same way he often has when his companies face a crisis: He announced a change in his sleeping arrangements. "Back to spending 24/7 at work and sleeping in conference/server/factory rooms," he wrote on X. "I must be super focused on X/xAI and Tesla (plus Starship launch next week), as we have critical technologies rolling out." The pledge to sleep in the office was familiar—he made similar promises when Tesla was preparing to release the Model 3 and after buying Twitter—but there was something strangely imprecise about Saturday's message. Where, exactly, is Musk going to sleep? A conference room? A factory? A server room? (Related question: Why would anyone want to sleep in a server room?) Musk's post suggested multiple objects for his around-the-clock focus. Besides X, there was xAI (which recently merged with X and is racing to compete with OpenAI's chatbot), Tesla (which is preparing a robotaxi demo next month) and SpaceX (whose Starship rocket suffered a launch failure last night). Is it really possible to be "super focused" on four things at the same time? The answer is probably no—though Musk's announcement wasn't really about the server rooms where he may or may not lay his head, or even about his focus. It was the latest in a monthslong campaign to undo some of the damage his foray into electoral politics has done to his companies, and to convince investors that he hasn't been distracted while tweeting nonstop about "white genocide" and playing the role of "first buddy" with President Donald Trump. He's got some work to do. A recent poll gauging people's feelings about well-known companies showed that SpaceX and Tesla had seen their reputations plummet in recent years, coinciding with Musk's hard-right political turn. From 2021 to 2025, the two companies went from having some of the best reputations among the companies studied to among the worst. Meanwhile, Tesla's sales continue to fall—with those in Europe dropping by half last month while the electric-vehicle market grew substantially. The cause here is obvious, as is the remedy—Musk needs to get out of politics—though it's not clear that he's sincere in his desire to refocus on his companies or if he is capable of doing so. A month ago, during a Tesla earnings call, Musk proclaimed that his work with the so-called Department of Government Efficiency was largely finished, yet added that he planned to spend as many as one to two days a week "on government matters for as long as the president would like me." The announcement impressed investors and helped push up Tesla's share price, even if it didn't exactly say what many investors had hoped it would. Two days is a lot of the workweek, and since making the statement, Musk has continued to maintain a visible presence around Trump. He flew to DC days after the earnings call to attend a cabinet meeting, then joined Trump in Saudi Arabia. Last week, speaking with my colleague Mishal Husain, Musk indicated that in addition to scaling back his time spent on politics, he was also scaling back his monetary commitment to Republicans. "I think in terms of political spending I'm going to do a lot less in the future," he said. "I think I've done enough."  Musk being interviewed by Husain last week at the Qatar Economic Forum in Doha. Photographer: Christopher Pike/Bloomberg Political reporters, having watched Trump alienate advisers during his previous presidency and aware of the obvious ideological differences between the two men, seized on the comments as proof that Musk had become, in the words of Atlantic reporters Michael Scherer and Ashley Parker, "the latest government employee to lose his job." Has he, though? I don't doubt that Musk's status in the White House is significantly diminished. After months of bickering with Trump's cabinet chiefs, his failure to sway a Wisconsin special election and the obvious unpopularity of some of DOGE's actions, how could it not be? On the other hand, it's worth reading claims about Musk's exit from the White House and reduction of political giving with a grain of salt. Musk may be spending less time in Washington, but his play for influence, which began last summer, is in its early days. For one thing, Musk very much needs Trump. For all his bluster about the inefficiency of government, Musk's empire depends on favorable government policies (in the case of Tesla) and contracts (in the case of SpaceX). Moreover, the empire feels stretched thinner than ever. Musk is angling to convert NASA's moon program, known as Artemis, in which he has a modest piece, into a Mars program that he would presumably lead—and he has an ally in Trump's NASA pick, Jared Isaacman, to try to make that happen. Tesla, meanwhile, is desperately attempting to pivot from selling cars to selling robotaxi rides, and could use help from federal regulators who have so far treated Musk's claims about autonomous driving skeptically. There's also the matter of the EV tax credits that Tesla has relied on to reduce the cost of its cars while preserving its profits—which were removed in the House's version of Trump's tax cut bill. That bill is still being negotiated. Musk, of course, knows this well. An excerpt released last night, ahead of an interview on CBS Sunday Morning, makes clear he wants a say. In the clip, Musk can be seen complaining that the bill will increase budget deficits and "undermines the work that the DOGE team is doing." It's possible that Musk will sit out the midterms and try to rebuild his reputation as a nonpartisan technologist. But little about Musk's actions over the past year—or even the past week, when he was in the Oval Office for a meeting with South African President Cyril Ramaphosa—suggests that's the plan. Last spring Musk made news when he posted, "Just to be super clear, I am not donating money to either candidate for US President." His latest comments are more equivocal—Musk told Husain that he would donate "if I see a reason"—and come after an unprecedented political spending binge. They should be treated with skepticism. NEW FROM ELON, INC.: Is Musk really quitting politics … for banking? 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