Elon Musk was hailed as a chainsaw-wielding slasher of the government at his debut at the Conservative Political Action Conference.
Appearing on stage in a gold chain, black MAGA hat and sunglasses, the tech mogul on Thursday boasted about taking on the federal bureaucracy and dismissed the Democratic opposition as fake during a sit-down interview with Newsmax host Rob Schmitt. Asked to give the audience a picture of the inside of his mind, he called it “a storm.”
“I am become meme,” he told the crowd outside Washington.
At one point, Argentine President Javier Milei delivered a gilded chainsaw to Musk on the stage. At another, Musk was handed a sci-fi-themed painting of himself.
The crowd ate up the eccentric appearance, giving Musk a standing ovation in some of the most raucous applause at the gathering.
In the month since President Donald Trump took office, Musk has energized Republicans as he’s worked to cut federal grants, reduce the size of the government workforce, and hobble agencies such as the U.S. Agency for International Development and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.
The conservative base cheering on Musk at his first CPAC appearance marks a critical moment for the billionaire who previously voted for Democrats and even recently has come under fire from key leaders in the MAGA movement.
Steve Bannon, the former top Trump adviser, has called Musk a “parasitic illegal immigrant” who “wants to impose his freak experiments and play-act as God without any respect for the country’s history, values or traditions.” Musk has said Bannon is “a great talker, but not a great doer.”
On Wednesday, Bannon continued to press his case against Musk, saying “the oligarchs” will abandon the right.
Conservative activists also lit up Musk in December when he threw his weight behind H-1B visas, which are for workers who are deemed highly skilled, in a debate on his social media site X.
Bannon spoke immediately after Musk at CPAC, setting up the potential for a high-profile clash between two factions of the Republican Party at the annual gathering. But during his Thursday talk, Bannon largely pulled punches against Musk.
“How did I draw the card to follow Elon Musk? Come on, man,” he said, calling him “the world’s wealthiest guy” and “Superman.” In comparison, he added, “I’m just a crazy Irishman.”
Bannon only tweaked Musk somewhat, saying that when the history books are written about this age, “ain’t gonna remember me or Elon Musk or Tucker Carlson or Sean Hannity — they’re gonna remember two things, Donald Trump and MAGA, OK?”
Despite fiery attacks from Bannon in recent days outside of his CPAC speech, Musk has been a figure of near universal praise from other speakers of the conference.
Former Trump aide Ric Grenell hailed Musk at CPAC’s international summit on Wednesday, saying, “Thank God he is saving my money and the world is going to benefit.”
International figures at the confab also praised Musk. Liz Truss, who was briefly the British prime minister in 2022, said, “We want Elon Musk and his nerd army of Muskrats examining the British deep state.” Mateusz Morawiecki, who was Polish prime minister from 2017 to 2023, told reporters “we have to really have our European DOGE initiative.”
During the conversation with Schmitt, Musk dismissed Democratic protests as “fake rallies” and said “at this point, I’m not sure how much of the left is even real.” He also lamented the challenges of managing his own security, saying, “I’m open to ideas for improving security, I have to tell you.”
Musk talked about his political transformation, saying it took place “when I realized I was a fool.”
Musk also positioned himself as above being influenced by money.
Musk shrugged off critics who are concerned about the possibility of him accessing data for profit, joking, “If I steal some Social Security, I can finally buy nice things.” Of those who say he’s an asset of Russian President Vladimir Putin, he said, laughing, “He can’t afford me.”
