Washington: Elon Musk, preparing to step back from his work leading the Department of Government Efficiency, had a request of the reporters gathered at the White House to interview him: Before he would answer any questions, he wanted someone to tell him a joke.
The tech billionaire’s request in the Roosevelt Room on Wednesday underscored the surreal and idiosyncratic presence of the world’s richest man at the highest echelons of American power. Over the past few months, his work of downsizing the workforce has sent shocks through the federal government and drawn intense pushback, including protests of his electric vehicle company, Tesla.
Musing about his and DOGE’s incongruous role in the US government, he said, “It is funny that we’ve got DOGE.”
“Doesn’t the absurdity of that seem, like, like, are we in a simulation here or what’s going on? But, like, it was a meme coin at one point,” he said, laughing. “How did we get here?”
Musk, clad in all black but missing the two hats he had worn at Wednesday’s earlier Cabinet meeting, defended DOGE’s work as he prepares to scale back his government role and spend more time at his businesses.
But he gave hazy answers about the work he’d been doing and DOGE’s future, and he seemed taken aback by the intense backlash he’d encountered.
“Being attacked relentlessly is not super fun,” he said. “Seeing cars burning is not fun,” he added, referring to the instances of Tesla cars being smashed or set on fire.
“In the grand scheme of things, I think we’ve been effective. Not as effective as I’d like. I think we could be more effective,” Musk said. “But we’ve made progress.”