‘He’s Not Even Pretending’: Ari Melber Rips Elon Musk’s Latest ‘Blatant Grift’
MSNBC’s Ari Melber criticized Elon Musk for using taxpayer money to promote the “Department of Government Efficiency” – and a cryptocurrency.
On Monday, President Donald Trump signed an executive order creating the aforementioned advisory group, which is led by Musk. Created by Musk, the acronym is a nod to Dogecoin, a nearly worthless cryptocurrency that the billionaire said he owns. The ostensible purpose of the commission is to cut waste from the government and make it more efficient, but the effort has been met with widespread skepticism – particularly after Musk claimed he could easily slash $2 trillion from the federal budget. He has since walked back that claim.
The DOGE commission has its own government website, though so far the site has nothing beyond an introductory page with no links.
“Department of Government Efficiency,” it reads. “The people voted for major reform.” On the page is an image of a dog, similar to the Dogecoin logo.
On Tuesday’s edition of The Beat, on MSNBC, Melber took Musk to task:
We recently reported on government adviser Elon Musk exploiting his role to promote the crypto he owns… He named his government group currency coin, which is named after a dog… which is really no different than trying to rename a government department after Coke or Tesla. I mention that because now, Musk’s taxpayer-funded .gov website for his Trump policy group promotes the same crypto coin. Again, you see a different version of that dog.
So, day one, Donald Trump’s chosen advisor, Elon Musk, is taking your taxpayer dollars and promoting his crypto businesses, stuff that he owns. He owns some of that. And the product, which is a crypto coin with this dog here, has nothing to do with cutting government spending or anything related. He’s not even pretending. It’s just a blatant grift.
Melber then pivoted to Trump and criticized the president for launching a meme coin just days before his inauguration.
On Friday, Trump announced the rollout of $Trump, a cryptocurrency meme coin that has netted Trump more than $50 billion on paper since trading began. His coin holdings account for nearly 90% of his net worth. Over the weekend, First Lady Melania Trump also launched a coin – $Melania – which is now also worth tens of billions.
Watch above via MSNBC.
