John Oliver compares Elon Musk’s new role in Donald Trump’s administration to the infamous Willy Wonka experience that went viral in 2024, claiming the billionaire’s new department has “no idea what they’re doing”.
The Last Week Tonight host began his Sunday (23 February) by concentrating on Musk and his newly former Department of Government Efficiency or DOGE.
Under Musk, the new office – which will operate “outside of government” – will advise on gutting federal departments and which staff should be fired if it deems they are a “massive waste.”
DOGE has been under scrutiny since Trump returned to office after numerous jobs were cut and the FBI director, Kash Patel, told staff to ignore an ultimatum from Musk.
Oliver began the segment by highlighting an incident in which Musk drastically overinflated the amount of money the department had saved, saying it was “a lot of numbers away” from the originally touted figure.
“In fact, there hasn’t been such a stark disconnect between marketing and reality since it turned out the Glasgow Wonka Experience was actually this,” quipped the comedian.
An image of the unfortunate actor who played an Oompa Loompa at the viral event was then shown on screen. “Right now, we are all her,” Oliver joked.
The 47-year-old also criticised Musk’s chainsaw stunt at CPAC, where he waved the bejewelled power tool above his head while being cheered on by Argentina’s right-wing president, Javier Mieli.
“I’m not legally allowed to say what I want to happen there, but I can and am thinking it really hard right now,” he said. “But a chainsaw might actually be a pretty apt metaphor for DOGE given that Musk’s cutting hastily and without a lot of precision.”
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Oliver added: “The government’s repeatedly had to scramble to hire employees they suddenly realized were essential. On Monday, we learned they were trying to hire more than 300 employees tasked with managing America’s nuclear weapons. Then on Tuesday, the USDA said it accidentally fired employees who are working on the federal government’s response to the avian flu outbreak.”
While holding the chainsaw above his head, Musk bellowed to the crowd: “This is the chainsaw for bureaucracy.”
As the crowd cheered him on, Musk declared: “I have become the meme. Yeah, pretty much. It’s like, there’s living the dream and living the meme, and it’s pretty much what’s happening, you know? I mean, DOGE started out as a meme, think about it, and now it’s real. Isn’t that crazy? But it’s cool.”
