‘Just Plain Stupid’: John Oliver Cuts Into Elon Musk’s ‘Chainsaw’-Like DOGE Moves

“Last Week Tonight” host John Oliver clowned Elon Musk on Sunday over the billionaire’s bizarre chainsaw stunt amid his cost-cutting crusade with the nonofficial Department of Government Efficiency.

Oliver reacted to a clip of the billionaire holding what he called a “chainsaw for bureaucracy,” a gift from Argentine President Javier Milei, as he spoke on stage at the Conservative Political Action Conference.

“Chainsaw,” exclaimed Musk as he shook the power tool in the air.

“First, is it possible that Elon Musk, the world’s richest man, thinks the sound a chainsaw makes is chainsaw?” Oliver quipped.

He later continued, “But a chainsaw might actually be a pretty apt metaphor for DOGE given that Musk is cutting hastily and without a lot of precision.”

The host pointed to the Trump administration repeatedly scrambling to rehire federal employees in the wake of mass dismissals, including those who oversee nuclear weapons as well as employees working on the government’s response to the bird flu.

Oliver then turned to a clip of one of the thousands of National Park Service employees recently fired under Trump.

“When you go on vacation this summer, I hope there are no forest fires because I and thousands of my co-workers, other national park rangers and national forest service members won’t be there to help put out the fires,” said Kristin Jenn, a U.S. Army veteran with disabilities at a recent protest in Austin, Texas.

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Oliver added that the Trump administration restored the jobs of some NPS employees fired in the cost-cutting frenzy, noting that the administration can be “swayed by public pressure” and declaring that they have “no idea what they’re doing.”

The host, after pointing to the billionaire’s misleading claims and DOGE’s embarrassing errors on its website, declared, “For all of Musk and Trump’s bragging, many of the cuts they’re making are random, disorganized and just plain stupid.”