Elon Musk and his companies continue to face scrutiny from the public after his actions through DOGE, but apparently, the billionaire has no idea why it’s happening. So, on Wednesday night, “The Daily Show” host Jordan Klepper metaphorically took Musk’s hand and walked him through it.
Following protests at Tesla dealerships in recent weeks, Musk sat down for a virtual interview with Fox News’ Sean Hannity this week, explaining his “shock” at the criticism he’s facing. He lamented that “Tesla is a peaceful company. We’ve never done anything harmful. I’ve never done anything awful. I’ve only done productive things.”
Those words come after Musk recently admitted he and DOGE “accidentally canceled” Ebola prevention efforts for a short time. So, at Musk’s shock, Klepper could only shake his head.
“I shouldn’t have to explain this to Elon, but it’s not about the Teslas,” he said. “Teslas are actually pretty cool as a car. It’s got that all-glass thing going on, kind of like a popemobile that f–ks. It’s got door handles that are hard to find, which is what everybody wants in a door handle. Everything in the car is electronic, so if it malfunctions, you just drown in it. You know, it’s like a free coffin. It’s cool! It’s cool. I give them credit!”
Roasts aside, Klepper went on to explain how, seriously, it’s not so much about the cars he makes.
“If I were to hazard a guess about why they’d be mad, it might be because in the last several weeks, you fired tens of thousands of federal workers, you made cuts to veterans’ care, life-saving foreign aid and food banks, you canceled important medical research, sometimes so abruptly that this happened.”
At that, a news clip began playing, detailing how some patients were left with medical devices in their bodies because clinical trials were stopped before they were complete.
“Or here, here’s another guess. Maybe people are mad at you because you don’t seem to know what the f–k you’re doing!” Klepper said. “You fired aviation safety staff, then they had to hire them back. You fired nuclear safety inspectors, and you had to hire them back. You cut funding for Ebola prevention, and then said, ‘Oopsie!’”
The Comedy Central host went on to say that he could come up with plenty more reasons that people are mad at Musk, but they wouldn’t be necessary, because the billionaire almost certainly knows why this is all happening.
“We know he’s not as smart as he pretends to be, but he’s also not as dumb as he’s pretending to be right now,” Klepper said. “And when he goes on Sean Hannity to complain about why people hate him, he’s just proving that the troll king of the Internet can’t handle the consequences of the real world.”
You can watch the full segment from “The Daily Show” in the video above.
