Elon Musk recently swapped his Dark MAGA hat and government “Tech Support” garb for his old “Occupy Mars” T-shirt, a reference to his rocket company SpaceX’s mission to colonize the red planet.

He embarked on a media blitz, granting interviews to news outlets that he had previously avoided and saying that he was focused on SpaceX and discussing his electric automaker Tesla.

And on social media, he posted that he was once again spending “24/7 at work” and sleeping in his companies’ factories and server rooms.

As Musk steps away from Washington and his Department of Government Efficiency, President Donald Trump’s “first buddy” is shifting back to his role as a business titan. But that move is not likely to come easy after Musk spent months backing Trump’s presidential campaign and dismantling parts of the federal government, raising concerns that he had become an absentee leader at his various enterprises, including SpaceX, Tesla, artificial intelligence company xAI and the social media platform X.

Musk’s time in government has been a decidedly mixed bag for his business empire. Tesla is particularly vulnerable after Musk’s popularity nose-dived when he slashed government jobs. Tesla dealerships became the target of protests as sales and profit fell. What’s more, the Republican budget bill now before the Senate would gut subsidies and policies that promote electric vehicles. Tesla’s stock has dropped about 14% this year, wiping around $180 billion off its market value.

Some of Musk’s companies have benefited from his proximity to the White House, with Trump at one point promoting Tesla cars on the White House lawn and SpaceX harvesting more government tie-ups with Starlink, its satellite internet service. X remains a powerful megaphone for Musk’s and Trump’s supporters. And Trump is a valuable ally with policy power who oversees agencies that regulate Musk’s businesses.

But Musk is the face of his companies, and his protracted time in Washington has raised alarms over how committed he is to his businesses. Some former workers at SpaceX and elsewhere have questioned his absence from the companies. Overall, it’s unclear if the tech billionaire’s Washington maneuvers will lead to long-term advantages for them.

“It became a mission critical thing to get the CEO back in the office,” said Eric Talley, a professor at Columbia Law School. “It’s not a moment too soon, quite frankly.”

How much time Musk will spend with his companies and outside of Washington now remains unclear. At a news conference in the Oval Office with Trump on Friday, Musk called his departure from the government “not the end of DOGE but really the beginning” and said he would continue to visit “and be a friend and an adviser to the president.”

“Elon’s really not leaving,” Trump said. “He’s going to be back and forth.”

Musk did not address how he would spend his time or how the change would affect his companies. He did not respond to an emailed request for comment. Tesla and SpaceX also did not respond to requests for comment. X and xAI declined to comment.

At SpaceX, Musk’s absence had been felt in recent months. In May, Dylan Small, a former mechanic at the rocket company, posted on X that “morale is low” and “people are burned out.”

“Your presence used to drive a fire in the team,” Small wrote to Musk. “Please come back and walk the floor.”

In a message to The New York Times, Small said SpaceX’s work was largely the result of employees feeling “inspired,” with Musk playing “a huge role in that.”

Since the start of Trump’s term, Musk has posted almost 1,000 times on X about SpaceX, which was half of the nearly 2,000 times he posted about DOGE, according to a tally by the Times. In that time, SpaceX has held two test launches of Starship, the rocket that Musk hopes will get humans to Mars, including one Tuesday.

Last week, Musk gave an interview to The Washington Post — a news outlet he has typically shunned — and emphasized that he was “physically here” for SpaceX before the Starship test launch from the company’s Starbase rocket facility in South Texas.

The launch ended in an explosion, but Musk still made a point to declare his presence. He reshared videos of himself in the SpaceX control center, as well as interviews with reporters and influencers talking about space travel.