It will likely come as no surprise that Elon Musk finds his name dominating headlines once again. The world’s richest man has hardly been a stranger to controversy over the past year, but his latest stunt might have even his staunchest supporters scratching their heads.
The rest of the world watches on as the circus that US politics has become rages on, and Musk has become an unlikely center-piece in the dramatics – this despite not holding any sort of elected position in Donald Trump’s administration.
The Tesla and Space X founder has been appointed head of DOGE (the newly-formed Depart of Government Efficiency), charged with slashing costs wherever he can. On paper at least, his aim is to weed out what he sees as taxpayers’ money being wasted, and to that end he’s set about attempting to drastically reduce the federal workforce.
Rightly or wrongly, Musk has managed to force his way into an extremely influential position since Donald Trump’s election victory last year, and his presence has generated more rumors and speculation than anyone in the US government, save perhaps the POTUS himself.
Last week Elon fielded answered questions from the press in the Oval Office, accompanied by his 4-year-old son. That was a bizarre sight for anyone to see, but perhaps not so bizarre – at least to the layman – as his recent brandishing of a chainsaw at a political event.
At a time when US politics has fully embraced a sense of theater and showmanship in order to better get its points across, it might not alarm folks that Musk embraced Milei’s chainsaw gimmick on stage, thereafter promising to commit a political Texas Chainsaw Massacre via the powers afforded to the aforementioned DOGE department.
“This is the chainsaw for bureaucracy,” Musk told the crowd as he waved the tool above his head.
“DOGE started out as a meme,” he added. “And now it’s real.”
Yet it wasn’t all fun and games for the CEO of X (formerly Twitter), as his ex-partner Grimes, mother to three of his children, pleaded with him to contact her regarding a “medical crisis” involving one of his kids.
“Plz respond about our child’s medical crisis. I am sorry to do this publicly but it is no longer acceptable to ignore this situation. This requires immediate attention,” Grimes wrote on X.
“If you don’t want to talk to me can you please designate or hire someone who can so that we can move forward on solving this. This is urgent, Elon.”
Grimes didn’t elaborate further on just what said medical crisis entailed, but did express that the child in question could “suffer life long impairment” if Musk continued to ignore her.
