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was delighted to have the world's richest person working in his administration, calling him "a smart guy" who "really cares for our country."

Musk was suddenly everywhere — in Cabinet meetings wearing a "tech support" shirt and black MAGA hat, hoisting his young son on his shoulders in the Oval Office, flying aboard Air Force One, sleeping in the White House. Democrats described the billionaire entrepreneur as Trump's "co-president."

Now that's over. After criticizing the and revealing his plan to , Musk said Wednesday he's leaving his job as a senior Trump adviser.

He's trailed by upheaval and unmet expectations. 

Musk treated federal workers with contempt — at best, they were inefficient; at worst, they were committing fraud. 

But no one was prosecuted for the fraud, and Musk reduced his target for cutting spending from $2 trillion to $1 trillion, then to $150 billion. Even that goal may not be reached.

In the end, said Alex Nowrasteh, vice president for economic and social policy studies for the libertarian think tank Cato Institute, "they set themselves up for failure."

Musk got a seat at Trump's table and put $250 million behind his campaign

Musk deployed software engineers who burrowed into sensitive databases, troubling career officials who sometimes chose to resign rather than go along. Trump brushed off concerns about Musk's lack of experience in public service or conflicts of interest from his billions of dollars in federal contracts.

Excessive spending was a crisis that could only be solved by drastic measures, Musk claimed, and "if we don't do this, America will go bankrupt."

He treated the White House like a playground. He let the president turn the driveway into a makeshift Tesla showroom to help boost sales. He installed an oversized screen in his office that he occasionally used to play video games.

Musk did not give federal workers the benefit of the doubt

Thousands of people were indiscriminately laid off or pushed out — hundreds of whom had to be rehired — and some federal agencies were eviscerated.

Musk's team offered them a "fork in the road," meaning they could get paid to quit. Probationary employees, generally people new on the job without full civil service protection, were shown the door.

Anyone who stayed faced escalating demands, such as when Musk asked every government employee to submit a list of five things they accomplished in the prior week and claimed "failure to respond will be taken as a resignation."

One day in February, Musk posted "CFPB RIP" with an emoji of a tombstone. The headquarters of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, created after the Great Recession to protect Americans from fraud and deceptive practices, was shut down and employees were ordered to stop working.

Musk gutted the U.S. Agency for International Development, a pillar of the country's foreign policy establishment and the world's largest provider of humanitarian assistance.

The Food and Drug Administration, responsible for ensuring the safety of everything from baby formula to biotech drugs, planned to lay off 3,500 employees but was forced to rehire people who initially deemed expendable.

There are also concerns about safety on public lands. The National Park Service bled staff, leaving fewer people to maintain trails, clean restrooms and guide visitors. More cuts at the Forest Service could undermine efforts to prevent and fight wildfires.

The Environmental Protection Agency faces a broad overhaul, such as gutting the Office of Research and Development, which was responsible for improving air pollution monitoring and discovering harmful chemicals in drinking water.

Not even low-profile organizations were exempt. Trump ordered the downsizing of the U.S. Institute of Peace, a nonprofit think tank Congress created, and Musk's team showed up to carry out his plan. The organizations' leaders were deposed, then reinstated after a court battle.

Musk made little headway at the top sources of federal spending

Thousands of civilian workers were pushed out at the Pentagon, where Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth is reducing the ranks of top generals, looking to consolidate various commands and trying to save money.

However, the Pentagon budget would increase by $150 billion under Trump's spending proposal working its way through Congress.

Musk also faced blowback for targeting Social Security, which provides monthly benefits to retirees and some children. He suggested the popular program was "a Ponzi scheme" and the government could save between $500 billion and $700 billion by tackling waste and fraud.

Musk's popularity cratered, though Americans often agreed with his premise that the federal government is bloated and wasteful, according to Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research polling.

Just 33% of U.S. adults had a favorable view of Musk in April, down from 41% in December; 65% said Musk had too much influence over the federal government.

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Associated Press writers Tom Beaumont in Des Moines and Lolita Baldor, Matthew Daly, Gary Fields, Fatima Hussein, Ellen Knickmeyer, Matthew Perrone, Michelle Price and Amelia Thomson DeVeaux in Washington contributed to this report.