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On a recent episode of The Daily Show, Jon Stewart took sharp aim at Elon Musk following the end of his brief and bizarre tenure with the Trump administration. Musk’s role as the head of the Department of Government Efficiency—fittingly dubbed D.O.G.E.—came to an official close on May 28, after 128 days in office.
According to U.S. Department of the Interior rules, a person can’t serve as a “special government employee” for more than 130 consecutive days in a year. Musk’s exit comes just shy of that limit, wrapping up a chapter marked more by spectacle than by tangible results.
“D.O.G.E. has finally rooted out one of America’s least efficient government workers and marked him for dismissal,” Stewart announced during his opening monologue, laying into Musk’s stint with classic deadpan.
He then cut to Musk’s final White House press conference, where the tech mogul appeared visibly battered. Stewart described Musk as resembling “a guy who had a bad night in a Nashville bar he can’t remember,” highlighting his “black eye” and a “thousand-yard stare.”
“This dude has seen some sh*t,” Stewart quipped. “I’d like to know at least how that happened.”
The mystery was somewhat clarified when Musk explained his shiner came from a playful moment with his son: “I was just horsing around with [my son]. And I said, ‘Go ahead, punch me in the face.’ And he did.”
Stewart didn’t buy it entirely. “Look, I believe things sometimes do happen when you’re roughhousing with your kid,” he said. “But I’m also sure the one sentence no parent has ever uttered to their child is, ‘Go ahead, punch me in the face.’”
But Musk didn’t leave empty-handed. In a clip from the same press conference, Trump proudly presented Musk with a parting gift: a ceremonial golden key.
“I gave him a little special something,” Trump said. “A very special [gift] that I give to very special people… I thought I’d given it to Elon as a presentation from our country.”
Stewart couldn’t resist one final jab: “You couldn’t just give him the f*cking key? You had to make sure everybody knows you give them to a lot of people. ‘I’ve got a bunch of these… I give them to special people like… Who’s the guy who brings me my Diet Cokes?’”
The whole segment, like Musk’s time at D.O.G.E., blended satire, absurdity, and a touch of mystery—exactly the kind of political theater Stewart lives for.
