The Daily Show: Ears Edition - TDS Time Machine | President Elon

Episode Date: February 24, 2025

Take a look back at the decade the last month has felt like, with coverage of unelected billionaire bureaucrat Elon Musk, and his quest to remake the U.S. government. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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 is 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. I changed my title to to techno King

And by the way, this is a formal SEC filing it's'm legally, or whatever, a techno king. I just did that as kind of like a joke. 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 super villain. Eventually you can transform Mars into an Earth-like planet. Drop thermonuclear weapons over the poles. 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 the 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 made his way to a booming Silicon Valley where he launched his first company zip to

Which he eventually sold to compactpaq 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 celebrated by buying himself a million dollar supercar. There are 62 McCarrons in the world and I will own one of them. Yes, Musk was so rich he could afford to have a midlife crisis while he was still in his 20s. Sadly, his new toy wouldn't last long. I didn't really know how to drive from 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. 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 his Nokia. 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, neuro-technology, and underground highways.

All while dating celebrities and starting a record label to release his own EDM track. Do it out your mind, because it's your trouble. 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. Now I'm not just changing lanes by itself. 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 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. Holy shit, it just ran that red light. If I come for those three years, the call will be able to take you from point to point. You could be asleep the whole time. Oh, f***! Jesus! I think we're basically less than two years away from complete autonomy. Oh, f***! Jesus! I think we're basically less than two years away from complete autonomy. Oh, f***! Oh, shit!

Shit, 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. releasing it to the Tesla customer base next year. But Musk can't stop dreaming big even when he probably should. Oh my god. 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 is one of totally normal and healthy families around the world. But success didn't come easy. He had to overcome a lot of doubters, starting with himself. 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. 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. Oh, oh, Jesus, sorry. 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? Well, he does have a national anthem.

But don't worry, it's not like he's got an army or anything. I went to Russia to look at buying a refurbished ICBM, which is a very trippy experience. 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 a hundred ambulance calls. 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. Okay.

Exactly. Does Musk seem like a man who is inhaling toxic fumes, I'm breathing them. 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-Age A12 a dough 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 promise 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? You basically have to hate humanity if you don't like that future. And that's why Elon Musk really is a visionary future man.

Zuck, Bezos, Tim Cook, Elon, Tic Tac Guy, Google Guy, the six guys who control maybe and 100% of your nudes. Laughter You don't need to pretend with me. Laughter I don't know what he's talking about. Delete, delete, delete. Laughter 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 fund in 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 going to get weird. Even by that afternoon, shit got weird. This appearance of Elon Musk at an earlier Trump rally is getting loads of attention because of a one-armed gesture he made. This one really matters. And I just want to say thank you for making it happen. Thank you. Okay. Charitably, I'm going to say that was just an awkward, my heart goes out to you gesture. Any of you might have done it like this.

You know, even Taylor Swift has done that, you know, my heart, but she almost never does the, goes out to you! Like, she's like, oh, I'm Swift has done that, you know, my heart, but she almost never does the, go down to you! Just always stays with, but you know, listen, it's f***ing nerve-wracking day. You're not normally a public speaker. It's a one-off gesture. Please try not to use it again. — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — I'm just gonna 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? Was that a very old man? Okay. Wasn't that a thing at one time? Oh, shit. No, I think it's important in these troubled times to continue to dab on the haters. 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. Oh, 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 Saving Private Ryan. 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 sweeping push to make over the federal government, sparking democratic panic and warnings of a constitutional crisis. 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.S. government. 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. One of the young men is apparently a former intern at Musk's Neuralink company who goes by the online handle BigBalls. Great. BigBalls 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 new segment, is that legal? To help us out, we go to our very own Troy Iwata. Troy, 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 gonna 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 gonna 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. 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. 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? As we dug into USAID, it became apparent that what we have here is not an apple with a worm in it,

but we have actually just a ball of worms. And so at the point at which you don't really like if you've got an apple that'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 USID is a ball of worms. There is no apple.

And when there is no apple, you've just gotta basically get rid of the whole thing. 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. 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 if you believe you have a... I don't know. I don't think so. 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. What? 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?

Uh, no, do both first. Okay, this is just... It's gonna take a lot of work, so I have to, you know... 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? I like omelets. I mean, I really like omelets. I could eat an omelet at every meal. I like omelets better than sex. Not really, but you get the point. I like omelettes better than sex. Um, not really, but you get the point. I like omelettes.

You can't make an omelette 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 pastry slut! Wow, never! 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 and agents who worked on the January 6 investigation are being targeted. It looks like a wholesale purge of the FBI. As you know already 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. What the f***? 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, OK? Bring it on, okay? So 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 fire- Trump firing the FBI agents is, is that legal? Troy? What? 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 get my note. Thank you, Troy. 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? Oh, my God! You can't be serious!

Is the sovereign wealth education citizen deporting water wasting legal? How many more questions are there gonna be? Eight more every hour for the next four years. Jesus Christ. 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's Troy? Yo. What's Troy? Yo, what's up? Troy got fired by Elon Musk. 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? No. Of course not. Big Balls was my fraternity brother. You can call me Floppy Taint. Oh, God damn it. Floppy Taint, everyone. -♪ The Daily Show theme music plays.

-♪ 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 DOJ. A new executive order directs government agencies to pursue large-scale cuts, saying they now need hiring approval from DOJ.

Yes. Elon Musk is now in charge of all government hirings. Hirings. Hirings. I didn't... Sorry. I didn't say that right. Right. I didn't say that right. Right.

I didn't say it right. Yeah, okay. Okay. Sorry. Okay. I don't know why I keep Hitler misspeaking. I... I don't know why I keep misspeaking. So this was already a pretty unusual thing for a president to do.

But Trump being Trump, he had to make it even more ridiculous. He had to make it even more ridiculous. I don't know why I keep misspeaking. So this was already a pretty unusual thing 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. Now, 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... with his 4-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 gonna get to see the rockets? No, son, we're gonna discuss budgets

because I'm a shitty dad. I mean, 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 I mean, and who thought cloning Stephen Miller was a good idea? I mean, is it for spare parts?

I mean, they look like a before and even more before picture. Okay? I mean, they look like a before and even more before picture. Okay? I mean... Okay, but, 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 shuddering agencies for a month now, and we can finally ask Elon, why are you doing this? 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. Wow. 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 going crazy? Because it feels like I'm watching Drake sing Not Like Us at karaoke. 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 thing transparent about Doge is Elon's skin. I mean, his financial disclosure is being kept secret. Doge is exempt from open records laws, 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 at a Panera now. So, Elon, I got to tell you, I don't think you're being that transparent. 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. Oh! Well, I did the exam and what an asshole. I don't want to give you a proctology exam. You know what? 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 his 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 f***ing problem? Well, all of our actions are fully public. So if you see anything, you say, like, wait a second, hey, you know, that seems like maybe that's, you know, there's a conflict there. I feel like people are gonna be shy about saying that. They'll say it immediately, you know?

Oh, good! Okay, if we see a conflict, we just need to say something. Hey, Elon, I noticed a conflict! Come on! Did that work? No? No? No?

No? No? No? No? No? No? No? Go! Go! Go! Go! Go! Go! Go! Go!

Go! Go! Go! Go! Go! Go! At least he's a genius. And the work he's gonna do will be flawless. Mr. Musk, you said on X that an example of the fraud that you have cited was $50 million of condoms were sent to Gaza. How can we make sure that all the statements that you said were correct so we can trust what you say?

Well, first of all, some of the things that I say will be incorrect and should be corrected. So nobody's going to bat 1,000. Nobody's going to bat 1,000? 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. So, um, you know, there's crazy things, like just a grocery examination of Social Security, and we've got people in there that are 150 years old. Now, do you know anyone 150? I don't, okay.

They should be on the Guinness Book of World Records. They're missing out. Um, so... Yeah! He's old! He's on a tough crowd! Tough crowd! Is this thing on? Is this thing on? Anyone here from Washington, D.C.?

Anyone? Are you all from Washington, D.C.? Ah! 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. Live from the Oval Office, it's the Musk C. Comedy special that will have you dozing in your chair. It's Elon Musk, Lolligark.

Now, do you know anyone on high? Is It's Elon Musk, Lolligark. Now, do you know anyone who has 150? I don't, okay. They should be on the Guinness Book of World Records. They're missing out. Oh snap, he's the CEO of comedy. I have detractors? You do, sir.

You'll wanna neurolink these jokes straight into your brain step, featuring an opening act by the Balding Brothers. Order now and you'll get even more of Elon's most hilarious bits. Blackmail me with money? Go f*** yourself. The one thing he's not cutting is the last. I'm aspirationally aspirationally funny. So

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