On Thursday, at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in Washington, D.C., Elon Musk waved a chainsaw bequeathed him by Argentina’s President Javier Milei at the event, proclaiming, “This is the chainsaw for bureaucracy.”
Milei has been cutting the Argentinian budget successfully; his austerity measures gave the country its first budget surplus in more than ten years in 2024. Argentina had a budget surplus of 1.76 trillion pesos, and the primary fiscal balance rose to a 10.41 trillion peso surplus.
At CPAC, Milei walked onstage with the chainsaw and handed it to Musk. The chainsaw was engraved with a motto Milei has embraced, “Viva la libertad, carajo,” which means, “Long live liberty, damn it.”
This is so epic. The president of Argentina @JMilei presents Elon Musk @elonmusk with a golden chainsaw.
A chainsaw to CUT bureaucracy. ???????????????????????????????????????????????? pic.twitter.com/wJCIJfhMjJ
— Patriot Lady (@angelwoman501) February 21, 2025
Elon Musk, the billionaire tasked with slashing US federal government spending, took to the stage at a conservative conference outside Washington with a gift from Argentina's libertarian President Javier Milei: a chainsaw https://t.co/FaLbmPS4yG pic.twitter.com/2x0rjGq2Sj
— Reuters (@Reuters) February 21, 2025
Musk commented on why he had decided to throw in with the Republican Party, saying, “I thought we were sort of heading to a point of no return, really. And so that’s why it was so essential that President Trump won the election and that there be a Republican majority in the House and Senate, which, thanks to you, has been accomplished.”
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“We need to restore the fundamental elements of what made America great, which is freedom and opportunity,” he said, adding later, “We’re fighting the matrix big time here. It’s got to be done.”
“I wasn’t really that interested in being political. It’s just like there was at a certain point no choice,” Musk said. “The actions that we’re taking, with the support of the president and the support of the agencies, is what will save Medicare, what will save Social Security. … That’s the reason I’m doing this. Because I was looking at the big picture here and it’s like, man, it’s getting out of control.”
“A country is no different from a person,” he continued. “Country overspends, a country goes bankrupt in the same way as a person who overspends usually goes bankrupt. So, it’s not like optional to solve these things, it’s essential.”
Criticizing the Biden administration’s actions on immigration, he stated, “You don’t actually have to assume some grand conspiracy, you just need to look at basic incentives. If the probability [is] that an illegal is going to vote Democrat at some point … then the incentive is to maximize the number of illegals in the country. That is why the Biden administration was pushing to get in as many illegals as possible and spent every dollar possible to get as many [as they could] because every one of them is a customer.”