What REALLY happened inside a West Wing office on Elon Musk's wild final night in Trump's orbit? Find out in this week's DC Insider newsletter

Sign up HERE to our DC Insider newsletter - your guide to what's rocking Washington, rattling the White House and setting tongues wagging on the HillSee more Daily Mail on Google - save us as a Preferred Source Published: 15:14 EDT, 26 August 2026 | Updated: 15:57 EDT, 26 August 2026 Elon Musk's crusade to take a chainsaw to the federal government burned hot and fast. It lurched through five months of mass firings, court fights and screaming matches with Donald Trump’s cabinet.Just before it ended on a Thursday night in May 2025, the world's richest man pulled a lightning-bolt-shaped bottle of Tesla Tequila from his cramped West Wing office and poured shots into plastic cups for a dozen of his top deputies.Days later Musk was out of the administration. Within a week, he and Trump were at war, a feud that ran from 'disgusting abomination' to Epstein posts to whispered accusations of drug abuse. Days before Musk left DOGE, he pulled a lightning-bolt-shaped bottle of Tesla Tequila from his cramped West Wing office and poured shots into plastic cups for a dozen of his top deputiesAlmost every former DOGE staffer has since scrubbed their profile and gone quiet.But one of his most senior lieutenants has now broken ranks with a tell-all memoir, obtained exclusively by the Daily Mail, that reveals the toast was really a goodbye. None of them knew it at the time.DC Insider is the Daily Mail's sharp, witty and well-connected guide to Washington.Delivered to your inbox every Thursday afternoon, it is packed full of exclusive reporting, juicy gossip too hot to publish anywhere else, behind-the-scenes color and the stories everyone is really talking about.Politics is fast. We're faster. Join us HERE to become a DC Insider with a front-row seat at the center of American politics.