TDS Time Machine | President Elon

Summary

The Daily Show: Ears Edition – Episode Summary: "TDS Time Machine | President Elon"

Release Date: February 24, 2025

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Introduction: Welcome to the Techno Age

The episode kicks off with host Desi Lydic introducing Elon Musk in a humorous light, blending admiration with satire. Desi paints Musk as a visionary akin to Thomas Edison and Iron Man, yet simultaneously pokes fun at his eccentricities.

Desi Lydic [00:01]: "He's part Thomas Edison, part Iron man, part annoying dude in the group chat. And he's anything but your standard CEO."

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Elon Musk: From Pretoria to Planetary Plans

Desi delves into Musk's origins, highlighting his South African roots and early forays into technology. She lays out his journey from programming at age ten to building the video game "Blastar" at twelve, eventually leading to his ventures in Silicon Valley.

Elon Musk [01:06]: "Eventually you can transform Mars into an earth-like planet. Drop thermonuclear weapons over the poles."

Desi humorously critiques Musk's ambitious yet controversial plans, blending factual milestones with exaggerated future visions.

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Musk's Rollercoaster of Ventures and Mishaps

The discussion transitions to Musk's entrepreneurial exploits, covering his companies like Zip2, PayPal (originally X.com), Tesla, and SpaceX. Desi contrasts his high-profile successes with his personal misadventures, such as crashing his McLaren.

Desi Lydic [02:23]: "Musk was so rich, he could afford to have a midlife crisis while he was still in his twenties."

Elon Musk [02:35]: "I didn't really know how to drive the McLaren because it's like a difficult car to drive..."

Desi continues to highlight Musk's relentless innovation while underscoring the flaws and failures that make his story relatable and comically flawed.

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The Tesla Autopilot Delusion

A significant portion of the episode scrutinizes Tesla's promises of full self-driving technology, juxtaposed with delays and unmet deadlines. The hosts use rapid-fire jokes to emphasize skepticism.

Elon Musk [04:02]: "I'm confident that in less than a year you'll be able to go from highway on ramp to highway exit without touching any control."

Jordan Klepper [04:11]: "Holy shit."

This segment satirizes the gap between Musk's ambitious proclamations and the tangible progress, reflecting broader public frustrations with overpromised tech advancements.

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Musk's Expanding Empire and Ethical Quandaries

Desi shifts focus to Musk's vast influence, comparing his net worth to the GDP of entire countries and questioning the ethical implications of his business practices.

Desi Lydic [05:37]: "And billions of dollars in government subsidies."

The discussion touches on controversies surrounding Musk's companies, including allegations of poor working conditions and tax avoidance, blending critical analysis with comedic skepticism.

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Elon Musk's Foray into Government: A Satirical Take

The episode takes a sharp turn into political satire as Desi and Jordan Klepper explore a fictional scenario where Elon Musk gains unprecedented control over federal agencies.

Desi Lydic [12:15]: "Elon Musk's sweeping push to make over the federal government, sparking democratic panic and warnings of a constitutional crisis."

Through exaggerated humor, the hosts depict Musk's takeover of agencies like USAID, emphasizing the absurdity and potential dangers of concentrated power in the hands of a single tech mogul.

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Legal Loopholes and Bureaucratic Breakdown

In a comedic courtroom-style segment, Desi introduces a mock legal expert, Troy Iwata, to discuss the legality of Musk's hypothetical governmental control. The segment is rife with absurd questions and playful banter.

Desi Lydic [17:37]: "Troy, I got another one for you. Is it legal for the president to shut down USAID without an act of Congress?"

Jordan Klepper [18:13]: "What?"

This interplay satirizes the complexities of legal frameworks and the often blurred lines between executive power and democratic principles.

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Climactic Confrontation: Musk vs. The System

The episode culminates in a confrontational and humorous exchange between the hosts and the fictionalized Elon Musk, where Musk defends his monopolistic control while the hosts dismantle his justifications with sharp wit.

Elon Musk [27:53]: "So all of our actions are maximally transparent. In fact, I don't think there's been. I don't know of a case where an organization has been more transparent than the Doge organization."

Jordan Klepper [28:54]: "You're basically a walking conflict of interest. Is that not a huge, huge problem?"

The dialogue highlights the tension between Musk's proclaimed transparency and the hosts' skepticism, reinforcing the episode's central theme of unchecked power.

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Conclusion: A Visionary or a Villain?

Desi wraps up the episode by pondering Musk's duality as both a genius innovator and a controversial figure. The hosts leave the audience with a mix of amusement and contemplation about Musk's real-world influence and the fictional portrayal of his role in government.

Desi Lydic [32:18]: "The one thing he's not cutting is the laughs."

The episode effectively blends satire with incisive commentary, offering a humorous yet thought-provoking take on Elon Musk's place in modern society and politics.

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Notable Quotes and Moments

• Elon Musk [00:34]: "I changed my title to Techno King. And by the way, this is a formal SEC filing..."

• Desi Lydic [04:23]: "Jesus."

• Jordan Klepper [28:54]: "Is that not a huge, huge problem?"

• Elon Musk [26:32]: "You basically, I think, have to hate humanity if you don't like that future."

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Final Thoughts

This episode of The Daily Show: Ears Edition masterfully combines sharp humor with social and political critique, using the larger-than-life persona of Elon Musk to explore themes of power, technology, and governance. Through witty exchanges and satirical scenarios, Desi Lydic and Jordan Klepper engage listeners in a lively discussion that is both entertaining and enlightening.

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For more episodes and extended content, visit ParamountShop.com or stream on Paramount+.

Transcript

[Desi Lydic]

You're listening to Comedy Central. What do you think of when you think of the future? Is it space travel? Robots? Trucks with the word cyber in front of them? Whatever your vision, there's one man working to make it a reality. He's part Thomas Edison, part Iron man, part annoying dude in the group chat. And he's anything but your standard CEO.

[Elon Musk]

I changed my title to Techno King. And by the way, this is a formal SEC filing. I'm legally, or whatever, Techno King. I just did that as kind of like a joke.

[Desi Lydic]

Yes, he's the Techno King, but as a joke. And soon we'll all be his serves, but in a funny way. Because while he may be an eccentric satellite launching, terminally online billionaire who wants to plug people into computers and build a vast network of underground tunnels, it's not like he's some kind of supervillain.

[Elon Musk]

Eventually you can transform Mars into an earth like planet. Drop thermonuclear weapons over the poles.

[Desi Lydic]

Well, maybe a little. So strap in, turn on the autopilot, but keep your hands on the steering wheel in case of pedestrians, because this is the daily showography of Elon Musk, Visionary future man. Elon Musk was born in Pretoria, South Africa in Earth year 1971. His father made a fortune in construction and emerald mining because Africa's resources are like free money for white people. Badly bullied in school, Elon overcame many hardships. Although unlike other South African celebrities, he didn't make his childhood into a whole thing. By age 10, he was learning to program computers. At 12, he built a video game he called Blastar, which started his lifelong love of inventing things that already exist. Soon after, he left South Africa and made his way to a booming Silicon Valley, where he launched his first company, Zip2, which he eventually sold to Compaq Computer for $305 million. Like so many tech entrepreneurs, he earned his unimaginable wealth by doing something invaluable for society. Selling a startup you've never heard of to a company that doesn't exist anymore. Musk's celebrated by buying himself a million dollar supercar.

[Elon Musk]

There are 62 McLarens in the world, and I will own one of them.

[Desi Lydic]

Yes, Musk was so rich, he could afford to have a midlife crisis while he was still in his twenties. Sadly, his new toy wouldn't last long.

[Elon Musk]

I didn't really know how to drive the McLaren because it's like a difficult car to drive, and I floored it and did a lane change and the back wheels broke loose and the car Spun around and then we hit the embankment and knocked the car into the air, which continued spinning like a discus. Like three feet in the air.

[Desi Lydic]

That's right. Musk's McLaren crashed worse than Dodge. Coin after Saturday night Live. For his next act, Musk created X.com, which would later become PayPal, the app your uncle had to use because Venmo and cash app won't work on a Zenopia. Musk took the money he made from that business and built an empire of cool ass shit. Rocket ships, electric cars, solar farms, artificial intelligence, neurotechnology and underground highways. All while dating celebrities and starting a record label to release his own EDM track. A banger. All the more impressive considering Musk had clearly never heard music before. Yes, Elon Musk refuses to stay in his lane. Much like a Tesla on autopilot, it's.

[Elon Musk]

Changing lanes by itself.

[Desi Lydic]

Tesla's groundbreaking cars, ludicrous speed go brought unprecedented power, range and sexiness to electric vehicles. A market previously reserved for nerds who cared about the environment. And Musk even promised the dream of full self driving technology. No hands, no feet, nothing like promised repeatedly.

[Elon Musk]

I'm confident that in less than a year you'll be able to go from highway on ramp to highway exit without touching any control.

[Jordan Klepper]

Holy shit.

[Desi Lydic]

It just ran that red light conference.

[Elon Musk]

That was in three years. The call will be able to take you from point to point. You could be asleep the whole time.

[Desi Lydic]

Jesus.

[Elon Musk]

I think we're basically less than two years away from complete autonomy.

[Jordan Klepper]

Oh, oh shit.

[Desi Lydic]

Shit.

[Elon Musk]

We, we hit that cross country from LA to New York by the end of the year. Fully autonomous, extremely confident of achieving full autonomy and releasing it to the Tesla customer base next year.

[Desi Lydic]

But Musk can't stop dreaming big, even when he probably should.

[Elon Musk]

Oh my God.

[Desi Lydic]

Like when SpaceX made history with the world's first reusable rocket technology and then used it to launch the first car into space. Technically the second, if you count Elon Musk's McLaren. Musk's special brand of achievement has won him a totally normal and healthy fan base around the world. But success didn't come easy. He had to overcome a lot of doubters, starting with himself.

[Elon Musk]

I don't want to give the impression that I thought Tesla would be successful from the beginning, I actually thought we would fail. We were only a few days from bankruptcy. It was literally two days.

[Desi Lydic]

It pushed him to the brink. Musk could have gone from being a multi billionaire all the way down to the very lowest rung of society, millionaire. But through the years, Musk kept his many ventures going with little more than his can do attitude.

[Elon Musk]

Oh, Jesus, sorry.

[Desi Lydic]

And billions of dollars in government subsidies. Today, Musk isn't merely the richest man in the world. His net worth is higher than the GDP of most countries. Should Musk be a country? He does have a national anthem. But don't worry, it's not like he's got an army or anything.

[Elon Musk]

I went to Russia to look at buying a refurbished icbm, which is a very trippy experience.

[Desi Lydic]

Okay, maybe worry a little. And he's not just great at making money. He's also an expert at saving it by paying almost nothing in taxes for three years and then actually nothing in 2018. Of course, there's always haters who like to nitpick Musk's business methods. There are charges of unreported injuries, excessive hours, abusive conditions, injuries on the job, breathing toxic fumes. Over 100ambulance calls.

[Elon Musk]

I don't think that's correct. I mean, I was literally living in the factory. If there's like toxic fumes, I'm breathing them.

[Desi Lydic]

Okay, Exactly. Does Musk seem like a man who is inhaling toxic fumes? But Elon Musk also understands that all work and no play make X Ash a 12, a dull boy. And like any well adjusted person, his favorite pastime is spending 12 to 14 hours a day on Twitter. So it made sense when Musk announced that he would buy the social media platform. And even more sense when the deal spun out of control and crashed into an embankment. But Musk doesn't only use Twitter for fun. He uses it to make the world a better place. Or at least promised to. It's where he promised to solve world hunger, end traffic, fight Covid and fix Flint's water. And when a Thai soccer team was stuck in a cave, Elon even promised to rescue those kids from the guy who rescued them. That's why Musk is such a champion of free speech. If you can't randomly accuse someone who is saving people's lives of being a pedo guy, does civil discourse even exist? Elon Musk is dedicated to building a brighter future for all humanity. It's why he backed the most futuristic presidential candidate of 2020. It's why he's so dedicated to turning every aspect of our lives into a platform for his dumb jokes. From robots to cybernetic implants to AI to space travel to unfettered social media, Elon Musk is building a future that humanity only imagined in the movies. And who wouldn't want to Live there.

[Elon Musk]

You basically, I think, have to hate humanity if you don't like that future.

[Desi Lydic]

And that's why Elon Musk truly is a visionary future man.

[Trevor Noah]

Zuck Bezos, Tim Cook, Elon Tic Tac Guy, Google guy, the six guys, guys who control maybe 20% of the world's wealth and 100% of your nudes. You don't need to pretend with me. I don't know what he's talking about. Delete, delete, delete. Populism. Ladies and gentlemen, shouldn't this gathering be happening in a volcano's lair near Zurich? Or are we just open source Illuminati now? Where's the conspiracy? Finding that honestly, there is not a useful app of communication not controlled by at least one of these individuals. And you may not be concerned that they've all ponied up a million dollars to be sitting there and are kissing the ass of a president who openly threatens non ass kissers. But trust me, shit's gonna get weird. Even by that afternoon, shit got weird.

[Desi Lydic]

This appearance of Elon Musk at an earlier Trump rally is getting loads of attention because of a one armed gesture he made.

[Elon Musk]

This one really mattered and I just want to say thank you for making it happen. Thank you.

[Trevor Noah]

Okay, charitably, I'm going to say that was just an awkward my heart goes out to you gesture. Many of you might have done it like this. You know, even Taylor Swift has done, you know, my heart, but she almost never does the goes out to you like just always. But you know, listen, it's nerve wracking day. You're not normally a public speaker. It's a one off gesture. Please try not to use it again.

[Desi Lydic]

Son of a bitch.

[Trevor Noah]

You really want to make sure the people in the back see it? I guess I'm just going to be generous and say maybe that was Elon's attempt at dabbing on the haters. I don't. By the way, do people still dab on haters? Is that. Was that a very old man? Okay, wasn't that a thing at one time? No, I think, I think it's important in these troubled times to continue to dab on the haters.

[Desi Lydic]

We all know Donald Trump isn't a details kind of guy. We elected him to come up with big brilliant ideas like renaming the Gulf of Mexico. No one else could have thought of that or should have thought of that. But it's okay that he's not big on details because during the campaign he promised us that he knew a guy.

I'm going to appoint Elon Musk, who's a fantastic guy, to lead a government efficiency commission tasked with saving trillions of dollars in fraud, waste and abuse. We have tremendous fat. Tremendous fat.

Don't take the bait, Desi. Don't take the bait. Be the bigger person. Be the bigger person. Okay? That's right. Elon Musk, the world's richest man and guy who cheers in the wrong parts of C. Trump, promised us that he'd give Elon full access to the federal government, pull it to the side and get all up in it. And unlike his wedding vows, this is a promise he kept. Elon Musk's sweeping push to make over the federal government, sparking democratic panic and warnings of a constitutional crisis.

[Jordan Klepper]

Now we have learned that his team has gained access to something extraordinarily sensitive. The system that the Treasury Department uses to disperse almost every check and expenditure of any kind made by the US Government.

[Desi Lydic]

That is a vast database with millions of Americans personal information on it. Yeah, yeah. Elon Musk has access to your Social Security number. And that is not cool. If you want our personal data, Elon, you go buy it off the Dark Web like everyone else. Okay, now you might be thinking, I don't want white nationalist Tony Stark to have sole control of the inner workings of the federal government, but relax. It's not just Elon. He has a fully equipped team. Longtime government employees this week were shocked to find that their new supervisors From Elon Musk's DOGE department include recent college and high school graduates between 19 and 24 years old.

[Jordan Klepper]

One of the young men is apparently.

[Desi Lydic]

A former intern at Musk's Neuralink company, who goes by the online handle Big.

[Jordan Klepper]

Balls.

[Desi Lydic]

Great Big Bowls. Has my Social Security number. Now I feel better. I know we complained about our leaders being too old, but doesn't this go a little too far in the other direction? Surely there must be a middle ground somewhere between crypto bros and crypt keepers. Not only that, Musk has been installing his big balls in a whole bunch of little known agencies that are crucial in actually running the government. The gsa, the opm, the omb, the OC and svu. And of course, the big question about this takeover, and the question we'll be asking ourselves a lot over the next four years is, is this legal? Which brings me to our news segment. Is that legal? To help us out, we go to our very own Troy Iwata. TR thank you for acting as our resident legal expert. You can count on me, Desi. I'm versed in legal statutes I have access to a network of law professors, and I'm wearing a bow tie. Perfect. Can you help us find out if it's legal for Musk and his Lost Boys to access the sensitive information of the federal government? That is a beautiful question, Desi. It doesn't sound legal, but nothing does anymore. Let me tell you what, I'll do some research and I'll get back to you. Oh, okay, great. Well, we'll check back in in a minute. Thank you, Troy. Now, Elon Musk isn't just going to get full access to the federal government just to sit back and watch it function like he's some sort of cuck. No, he's going to jump in there and do some cutting this weekend. Musk taking aim at the US Agency for International Development, or usaid, which is in charge of dispensing tens of billions of dollars in foreign aid.

[Jordan Klepper]

USAID employees are waking up this morning to an email notice telling them not to show up to work today. As Musk says, he is shutting the agency down.

[Desi Lydic]

Yes, the richest man in the world is cutting off aid to poor countries. Why can't you just be a normal billionaire and co host Shark Tank or run an NBA team into the ground? Now, I'm not saying there's not some cuts to be made in foreign aid spending. You just don't want to throw the baby out with the bathwater or what's the expression I'm looking for?

[Elon Musk]

As we dug into usaid, it became apparent that what we have here is, is not an apple with a worm in it, but we have actually just a ball of worms. And so at the point which you don't really like, if you've got an apple, it's got a worm in it. Maybe you can take the worm out, but if you've got actually just a ball of worms, it's hopeless. And USAID is a ball of worms. There is no apple. And when there is no apple, you've just got to basically get rid of the whole thing.

[Desi Lydic]

Okay, we get it. We get the metaphor. You don't have to keep saying worms over and over again. You know, I have a metaphor, too. Elon Musk's charisma reminds me of a ball of worms. And of course, USAID was codified by an act of Congress. So if Trump thinks he can have Elon Musk kill it, he must have a strong legal reason for why he can do that without an act of Congress. Will it take an act of Congress.

To do away with usaid, or do you believe I don't know.

[Trevor Noah]

I don't think so.

[Desi Lydic]

Or not. Why should he know? He's just the President. Fortunately, we have a legal expert who can help answer that question. Let's go back to Troy Iwata.

[Jordan Klepper]

What?

[Desi Lydic]

Troy, I got another one for you. Is it legal for the president to shut down USAID without an act of Congress? Oh, I'm not done looking at the Treasury Department thing. Well, Troy, we kind of need to know this now. We have to keep up with Trump. Okay. Okay. So should I do that question first? No, do both first. Okay.

[Jordan Klepper]

This is.

[Desi Lydic]

It's going to take a lot of.

[Jordan Klepper]

Work, so I have to.

[Desi Lydic]

Thank you, Troy. Thank you. Now, obviously, Republicans are standing by Musk for the most part. They say that Trump ran on cutting spending and this is all just a part of that. But is there perhaps a senator who could make that point in the weirdest, creepiest way possible?

[Jordan Klepper]

I like omelets.

[Desi Lydic]

I mean, I really like omelets. I could eat an omelette at every meal.

[Jordan Klepper]

I like omelets.

[Desi Lydic]

Better than sexual? Not really, but you get the point.

I like omelets. You can't make an omelet without breaking some eggs. Did we really have to learn all about this guy's sex life just so he could get to a common expression? I can only climax when someone steps on my balls. Anyway, there's no use crying over spilt milk. Look, I don't know if I understand Senator Kennedy's metaphor, but I definitely understand why he's been banned from Denny's. Anyway, if you're looking for Senator Kennedy's wife, she's the woman in the grocery store yelling at the eggs. You stay away from my husband, you cage free slut. Why? I. I'm just kidding. I'm sure she prefers eggs to having sex with him, too. But Elon Musk isn't the only one having people finger banging their eggs Florentine with excitement. Donald Trump is also reducing the government workforce, although his interests seem to be less about cost cutting and more about sweet, sweet revenge.

Tremendous unrest inside the FBI as prosecutors.

[Jordan Klepper]

And agents who worked on the January.

[Desi Lydic]

6Th investigation are being targeted.

[Jordan Klepper]

It looks like a wholesale purge of the FBI. As you know, the eight top officials at the Federal Bureau of Investigation have either been fired or forced to resign. Now the FBI is being asked to produce a list of every employee who worked on any case related to January 6th. I am told this is some 6,000 FBI employees all told.

[Desi Lydic]

What the these agents were doing their job enforcing the law, and now they're getting fired. That is not how it works. I cannot believe I have to explain firing to the star of the Apprentice. That was your whole fake job. And this is obviously just the beginning, because Trump is going to be targeting everyone that's ever come after him. And I just want to say I'm not scared. So, Mr. Trump, bring it on. Okay? Bring it on. That's coming from me. Jordan Klepper. K L E P P E R. Now, obviously, of course, the big question over Trump's Trump firing the FBI agents is, is that legal? Troy.

[Jordan Klepper]

What?

[Desi Lydic]

I'm still doing the other stuff. Don't worry about that stuff. But also finish that stuff and add on this new stuff. Find out if the president's executive powers include the termination of officials ordered by the former Attorney General to investigate the criminal actions of his accomplices. I didn't get any of what you just said. Okay, I need to. I need to get my notepad. The truth is, practically everything Trump is doing these days is in a legal gray zone. Just today, he announced an executive order dismantling the Department of Education. He started a sovereign wealth fund. He's considering deporting U.S. prisoners to El Salvador, and he's ordered billions of gallons of water to be wasted in central California. Troy.

[Jordan Klepper]

Oh, my God. You can't be serious.

[Desi Lydic]

Is the sovereign wealth, education, citizen deporting, water, wasting legal?

[Jordan Klepper]

How many more questions?

[Desi Lydic]

Are there gonna be eight more every hour for the next.

[Jordan Klepper]

Jesus Christ.

[Desi Lydic]

You're gonna find out in a second if it's legal for me to blow my brains out on the air. Well, is it? I don't know, Troy. Look, I know. I know this is a hectic pace, but it's important that we find out the answers so we can be as informed as possible about whether this administration's actions are legal. Don't you agree, Troy? Wait, where. Yo, what's up?

[Elon Musk]

Troy got fired by Elon Musk.

[Desi Lydic]

What? Is that legal for Elon Musk to fire one of our employees?

Of course it is.

Everything Elon does is legal, bro. Wait, who are you? Are you Big Balls?

[Elon Musk]

No, of course not.

[Desi Lydic]

Big Balls was my fraternity brother.

[Jordan Klepper]

You can call me Floppy Taint, God damn it.

[Desi Lydic]

Floppy Taint, everyone.

[Jordan Klepper]

For weeks, people have been raising alarms about how Trump seems to be handing way too much power over to Elon Musk. And yesterday, Trump replied. I hear you. You want me to give more power to Elon Musk. President Trump setting new guidelines for hiring in the federal workforce while giving more power to Elon Musk and his team at The Department of Government Efficiency, or doge. A new executive order directs government agencies to pursue large scale cuts, saying they now need hiring approval from Doge. Yes, Elon Musk is now in charge of all government hirings. Hyrance. Sorry, I didn't say that. Reich, right? I didn't say it right. Yeah, okay, okay. I don't know why I keep Hitler misspeaking. I don't know why I keep misspeaking. So this was already a pretty unusual for a president to do, but Trump being Trump, he had to make it even more ridiculous by introducing it with a full on circus act in the Oval Office. Look at this scene. Musk is holding court with his hands tented like a Bond villain. Probably to stop him from doing a Nazi salute with his four year old child in tow. I mean, that poor kid. His dad literally runs SpaceX. And Elon took him to a meeting on federal spending. Dad, are we going to get to see the rockets? No, son, we're going to discuss budgets because I'm a shitty dad. Everything about this event was so bizarre. Trump was sitting quietly for half an hour, retreating to his happy place, thinking about Arnold Palmer's giant Doge. And who thought cloning Stephen Miller was a good idea? It's a perspective. I mean, they look like a before and even more before picture. Okay, all right. Leaving aside this Renaissance painting done by the dogs playing poker guy, it's good that we have Elon Musk here because we've been watching him slashing programs and shuttering agencies for a month now. And we can finally ask Elon, why are you doing this?

[Elon Musk]

If the people cannot vote and have their will be decided by their elected representatives in the form of the President and the Senate and the House, then we don't live in a democracy, we live in a bureaucracy. So it's incredibly important that the President, the House and the Senate decide what happens, as opposed to a large unelected bureaucracy.

[Desi Lydic]

Wow.

[Jordan Klepper]

Wow. I mean, you see why this guy's a genius. You don't want an unelected bureaucrat running the country. It makes a lot of sense. No questions here. I do have one question though. Isn't that you? I mean, I mean, am I, am I going crazy? Cause it feels like I'm watching Drake sing. Not like us at karaoke. Like, does he, does he not know? Is having this one unaccountable bureaucrat in charge better than having those other unaccountable bureaucrats in charge? Because at least the others have to follow transparency laws the only Thinging transparent about doge is Elon Skin. I mean, his financial disclosure is being kept secret. Doge is exempt from open records law. And when someone on Twitter merely identified some of the people who work for Doge, Elon suspended their account and said, you have committed a crime. Which we tried to fact check with career officials at the FBI, but they're all working out of Panera now. So. Elon, I gotta tell you, I don't think you're being that transparent.

[Elon Musk]

So all of our actions are maximally transparent. In fact, I don't think there's been. I don't know of a case where an organization has been more transparent than the Doge organization. And I fully expect to be scrutinized and get a daily proctology exam.

[Jordan Klepper]

Oh, well, I did the exam and. What an asshole. You know what? I. I don't want to give you a proctology exam. I just want to know what you're doing. Because another advantage of federal bureaucrats is that they can't have conflicts of interest, whereas you seem to have every conflict of interest. SpaceX has government contracts, Tesla is under government oversight, X is under government investigation, and its hair plugs are being investigated by the Department of. No one's buying this. You're basically a walking conflict of interest. Is that not a huge, huge problem?

[Elon Musk]

Well, all of our actions are fully public, so if you see anything, you say, like, wait a second. Hey, Elon, that doesn't. That seems like maybe that's, you know, there's a conflict there. It's not like people are gonna be shy about saying that. They'll say it immediately, you know.

[Jordan Klepper]

Oh, good. Okay. If we see a conflict, we just need to say something. Hey, Elon, I noticed a conflic. Did that work? No, no, nothing happened. There's no accountability and nothing matters. Great. Perfect system. Well, it. He's not gonna be transparent, and he's riddled with conflicts of interest, but at least he's a genius, and the work he's gonna do will be flawless.

[Desi Lydic]

Mr. Musk, you said on X that.

An example of the fraud that you have cited was $50 million of condoms was sent to Gaza. How can we make sure that all the statements that you said were correct so we can trust what you're saying?

[Elon Musk]

Well, first of all, some of the things that I say will be incorrect and should be corrected. So nobody's gonna bat a thousand.

[Jordan Klepper]

Nobody's gonna bat a thousand. You made up a $50 million conspiracy of sending condoms to Gaza. You're not grounding out to third, you're puking into the umpire's mouth. And just for the record, of course, the United states didn't send $50 million worth of condoms to Gaza. We sent $5 million of vibrating sex swings to North Korea. And I believe it stopped nuclear war. But don't quote me on that. I'm not gonna bat a thousand. So, to summarize, he's not transparent. He has tons of conflict, he believes any lie he hears, and he spreads false rumors that go global. Honestly, I'd be pretty mad at him right now if he didn't have so much gosh darn charisma.

[Elon Musk]

So, you know, there's crazy things like just cursory examination of Social Security, and we've got people in there that are 150 years old. Now, do you know anyone who's 150?

[Jordan Klepper]

I don't.

[Elon Musk]

Okay, they should be on the Guinness Book of World Records. They're missing out. So.

[Jordan Klepper]

He'S old. He's on. Tough crowd. Tough crowd. Is this thing on? Is this thing on? Anyone here from Washington, D.C? anyone? Oh, you're all from Washington, D.C. look, if you want to see more of that kind of comedy, then don't worry, because there's a new special coming out that's just for you.

[Desi Lydic]

Live from the Oval Office.

[Jordan Klepper]

It's the Must See Comedy special that will have you dozing in your chair. It's Elon Musk. Lola Garc.

[Elon Musk]

Now, do you know anyone? 150. I don't. Okay. They should be on the Guinness Book of World Records. They're missing out.

[Jordan Klepper]

Oh, snap. He's the CEO of comedy.

[Desi Lydic]

I have detractors.

[Elon Musk]

You do?

[Jordan Klepper]

Sir, you'll want to neuralink these jokes straight into your brain stem. Featuring an opening act by the Balding brothers. Order now, and you'll get even more of Elon's most hilarious bits.

[Elon Musk]

Blackmailing with money. Go yourself.

[Jordan Klepper]

The one thing he's not cutting is the laughs.

[Elon Musk]

I am aspirationally, you know, aspirationally funny. So, yeah.

[Jordan Klepper]

Sponsored by Doge Doge. We use the HIV prevention money to pay for this.

[Desi Lydic]

Explore more shows from the Daily show podcast universe by searching the Daily Show. Wherever you get your podcasts, watch the Daily show weeknights at 1110 Central on Comedy Central and stream full episodes anytime.

[Jordan Klepper]

On Paramount plus.

[Desi Lydic]

Paramount Podcasts.