Elon Musk has officially ended his time in the federal government. Now, he was a special federal government employee, and there are limitations to the amount of time they can serve in that role. So it's not like he slammed the door on Trump's face and said, I'm out of here. [00:00:16] No, his time was up. However, he seems pretty bitter about his run in the Trump administration. So Musk officially announced his departure last night, writing, as my scheduled time as a special government employee comes to an end, I would like to thank President Donald Trump for the opportunity [00:00:33] to reduce wasteful spending. The Doge mission will only strengthen over time. Will it as it becomes a way of life throughout the government. Is it now? Was just yesterday. Literally just yesterday, we covered a story where Elon Musk was [00:00:52] furious about the big beautiful bill. Right? Because of the fact that it adds $3 trillion to our national debt. So I don't know how he reconciles. The statement of the Doge mission will only strengthen over time [00:01:07] with the fact that no, it's business as usual in the federal government, and we're adding to the deficit and the debt. What do you think? I don't know what this guy was expecting, I think. I think everybody could get behind the idea that the government could [00:01:24] be more efficient, which is fair. I think that's fair game. Every probably every American citizen agrees with that premise. But when you're talking about we want to cut 2 trillion. And he's like, yeah, maybe we'll just do 1 trillion. And you can't touch the Pentagon. [00:01:42] Politically touching Medicare would be a disaster. So would touching social. The only thing they could come up with was Medicaid by fraudulently pretending that they were kicking off freeloaders or something stupid like that. [00:01:58] There's no savings to be had, bro. And especially not in the haphazard way that Elon was trying to do it, which is just fire everybody and put the agencies back together piecemeal. Right. Well, in the meantime, we lose air traffic controllers [00:02:14] and Social Security office people. And like what? Like the just the most asinine thing you could ever do. So I have a family member who got one of those layoff notices. She worked in the IRS, and in the beginning, [00:02:32] she kind of joined her colleagues in trying to fight for their jobs. And by the way, she's very smart, brilliant person. And then along the way, she's like, what am I doing? Why? Why am I fighting so hard to fight for a federal government that doesn't want me, [00:02:50] doesn't appreciate me? I'm going to go into private practice as a CPA and make bank. And that's just one example. That's an anecdote. But think about all the different people who have been laid off from their federal government jobs in all these different agencies who are skilled workers. [00:03:10] They're not just randos off the street. - That's insane. - And so they're gone. Like a lot of these people are gone. They're working in the private sector. And these gutted government agencies that need skilled workers to carry out these jobs. [00:03:25] It's just going to be really hard to fill those jobs because, again, you can't just pick any random off the street and fill those jobs with these individuals. So with that in mind, you know, you have this post on X from Musk. It's very formal. Nothing, nothing shady toward the Trump administration. [00:03:42] No salt. However, the tone of that post is very different from the tone that you'll notice from Elon Musk in other statements he's been saying recently, especially over the past several days. So he estimated that 60 to 70% of his time in the federal government was fun. [00:04:00] He had a great time slashing and burning things as the richest man in the world. But he's also been venting a lot about his experience there. So a few days ago, he responded, I did my best to an ex post that read, Doge is literally one of the most popular government initiatives in history. [00:04:17] Is it? I don't know where these numbers are from. Okay, I've seen polling. That's very opposite of what I'm about to read. Smartest man on the Earth. 73% of Americans say they support cutting government waste. I can believe that, because the devil's in the details. [00:04:33] What government waste are we talking about? Right? Trump brought in the smartest man on earth to do it. The left destroyed Elon for it. The GOP won't vote on it. I can't believe this. And you know, in response to that, Elon Musk said, I did my best. [00:04:49] Now, in an interview with The Washington Post, Elon Musk also complained about how Washington DC treated Doge, saying the federal bureaucracy situation is much worse than I realized. I thought there were problems, but it sure is an uphill battle trying to improve things in DC to say the least. [00:05:08] Okay, I'm going to reiterate you are the richest man on the planet who was hyper focused on shutting down Social Security field offices. He referred to Social Security, one of the most popular universal programs [00:05:24] in America, as a Ponzi scheme. He dismantled the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which, its name, by the way, suggests that it does good things for consumers. Defrauded consumers, end up getting their money back from financial institutions [00:05:42] that have defrauded them. But, you know, his priorities communicated something to the American people. And they didn't like that communication, especially from the richest man in the country, the world. He also says doge is just becoming the whipping boy for everything. [00:05:57] Something bad would happen anywhere and we would get blamed for it, even if we had nothing to do with it. Now he also again shut down Social Security field offices, two of which were in one state, Georgia. He dismantled the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. [00:06:13] He fired a bunch of federal workers, many of whom were veterans. That wasn't a popular thing to do. And, look, the data backs up that people were annoyed by him and what he was focusing on cutting. He was not cutting, you know, waste in the Pentagon, which we know [00:06:33] there's a lot of waste in the Pentagon because they can't pass a single audit. So let's take a look at what the data actually says about how Americans feel in regard to Doge. How low can you go? Oh, my. Okay. Take a look here Elon Musk net favorability rating. [00:06:48] Look at this shift back in 2017, before he really started this politics thing. He was at plus 24 points. Look at where he is now. Whoa. He fell through the floor. -19 points among Democrats. The fall was even more dramatic. We're talking about going from plus 35 points on net favorability rating. [00:07:05] That is quite a popular guy among Democrats to get this now down to -91 points. Trump loved talking about Elon Musk at the beginning of his administration. Posts about Musk on Truth Social. Look at this from January 20th to April 4th, he posted about 40 times. [00:07:22] Look from April 5th onward, 00000. Wow. American people not happy with Elon Musk. And he's not happy. They're not. They're unhappy with him. You know, it's interesting because Trump will use people to his benefit. [00:07:42] And then once they're a political liability, he'll drop them real quick. I mean, he's a politician. That's what politicians do. I guess I shouldn't be surprised, but I'm sure that annoys Elon Musk to some extent as well, even though he hasn't complained about that publicly yet. Was what do you make of the American sentiment toward Musk? [00:08:01] It's not hard to understand and polarize times. This guy decided to make himself into a Partizan figure, just in a completely idiotic move. And in the manner that he did. So it's not as if he was some like he made himself try [00:08:20] to look like some bureaucrat, right? Like Bessant or one of these other guys in the Trump cabinet. Instead, he's at like conservative, you know, conferences with chainsaws. And like, we want federal workers to feel pain. [00:08:35] And like he literally tried to make himself into a villain. And so people viewed him that way. It's like you, he he did everything that he could to get attention for the stuff that he was doing. And it was broadly unpopular. [00:08:52] And, you know, the fact that Trump has distanced himself, I'm himself. I'm not surprised because Elon is not at all politically useful, but also Trump's staffers and cabinet people, cabinet members like, you know, aka the people who work in the government bureaucracy on the hat on the behalf of Donald Trump, [00:09:11] don't like the idea that Elon tried to come in and tell them what to do with their staff and their budgeting, and like, this was always a conflict, even. And I think we talked about this up here, all of this predictable stuff [00:09:26] where it's like, oh, we're going to make the government, super efficient. Trump already promised a huge tax cut. That's not efficiency, that's government spending guys. Like that's revenue that's not going into the government coffers to pay down our [00:09:41] debt so that the richest people in the country could get a little bit richer. And I think, Elon, you know, I think these people are deficit hawks and stuff like that because they really enjoyed the atmosphere [00:09:58] where there was zero interest on loans. And so, you know, that's that that zero interest sort of environment. It might be gone forever. And a lot of, a lot of these guys are like, damn, like maybe we [00:10:14] should shouldn't be doing all this crazy tax cutting and all of that. Maybe what was most important was keeping our interest low. Well, what's interesting is there are some stories coming out now about how over leveraged equity firms are really struggling right now because, [00:10:31] you know, they took out all these loans, low interest loans. - They're thinking. - No interest loans. No interest loans. Now they're struggling a bit. Okay. So I hope they all go under. They won't. But some of them might. Some of them will. And, that's cause for celebration. [00:10:48] These private equity firms are, some of the scummiest institutions in this country and have made a lot of money to the detriment of the American people. Certainly, when it comes to the housing market, when it comes to businesses they acquired under this false pretense of wanting to save the businesses, [00:11:04] but all they did was rape and pillage those businesses and destroyed them. I mean, toys R us is a good example of that. Toys R us, okay, like I grew up on toys R us. Exactly. That doesn't exist anymore and it's because of private equity. [00:11:20] So the low interest environment led to a lot of abusive behavior, by the haves, if you will. And so it's distorted the economy, it's distorted the stock market. And so, you know, I think you're right. [00:11:36] I don't think we'll ever go back to an era like that. But I do think the Federal Reserve is looking to lower interest rates. It's just hard to do it when you have a president who seems willing to engage in acts that lead to a lot of economic uncertainty, like the, you know, wide [00:11:53] ranging tariffs and all of that stuff. So final thing I'll say is there's a House Republican who gave Fox News digital, an anonymous quote about Elon Musk. And I'm so sick of these cowards. [00:12:09] Like, how about how about you grow a set and, if you're going to say something, say it and say it with your name being, attached to it. But this person says this is why Musk has no place in Congress. He wants to codify discretionary cuts. [00:12:25] He didn't find enough waste, fraud and abuse to fund the Small Business Administration, let alone reduce our debt. This was a gimmick. He got used. He's now upset. He played the game. He got what he wanted. Then he ended up like everyone else who gets too close, dying to know [00:12:45] who this House Republican is. - But we never will know. - Did he get used? - He got a few. - Contracts for Starlink and SpaceX. Like he got some money out of this. Like, don't get it twisted. [00:13:00] And, you know, the regulatory bodies that were looking into the horrible labor practices at Tesla and some of some of his other companies. That stuff just got thrown by the wayside. I mean, I think he came out roses. Now, Reputationally. [00:13:19] Look, the the Tesla stock, the board doing exploratory meetings for new for a new CEO. Making yourself again the face of this, making yourself a Partizan while being a CEO, while so much of your customer base is a bunch of libs [00:13:39] and your cars ain't cheap, bro. Yeah. Like I'm sorry. Like losing all of those libs. You ain't going to be able to replace him with a bunch of Trump people. Like it doesn't work like that. But it's not just a bunch of Trump fans that just go out and show 90 G's on an ugly ass Cybertruck, like that was a bad move on his part. [00:14:00] Like, I think some of that he's regretting as well. I know. I mean, like, there was a big market of libs who love ugly EVs, right? You're not going to find that on the right. Certainly not to the same extent. Like they want American muscle. [00:14:17] I'm just kidding. I don't know what they want, but they are less inclined to opt for an EV. I use this I use this example earlier and like Trump's hotel in Las Vegas, right? I know for a fact no Lib is ever going to stay there again. [00:14:32] But it's a hotel in Vegas. They're probably like 350 400 a night. Conservatives can make up the inventory there and be like, whatever, these libs don't want to stay there. I'm going to stay at the Trump Hotel. It's a whole other ball game to do 7080, 90 000 purchase on a car. [00:14:51] - That's way different, man. - Yeah, that's a really good point. The price point is really a good point here. Look, I if the price is right, I wouldn't be opposed to staying at a Trump hotel. - I don't care, right? - But I know I would, I just wouldn't. [00:15:06] Here's the problem, though. It's not even that it's giving Trump money or any of that because he probably doesn't even own it. It's the people that are going to be there. - It's Vegas. - Though. - It's Vegas. - So that's my point. Okay. All right. Fair. Fair enough. My problem with the Trump Hotel in Vegas is is it in Vegas? [00:15:25] - It's like nowhere. - Near the strip. - Not on the. - Strip. You got to stay on the strip. You gotta. What are you gonna do? You're gonna get in a car and drive to the strip while you're in Vegas. No, I'm not gonna do that anyway. You know, not it's not prime location. [00:15:40] Trump property in Vegas, not prime location. Every time you ring the bell below, an angel gets its wings. Totally not true, but it does keep you updated on our live shows.