On Sunday’s (February 23) episode of Final Week Tonight, John Oliver mentioned Elon Musk‘s Division of Authorities Effectivity (DOGE), evaluating it to the U.Okay.’s disastrous Willy Wonka immersive expertise that went viral final 12 months.
The late-night host began by stating how Musk mistakenly claimed that DOGE’s slashing of federal spending has resulted in $55 billion in estimated financial savings. Reporters, together with NPR, quickly discovered these numbers to be inflated, with the precise quantity nearer to $2 billion, which, as Oliver mentioned, was “numerous numbers away” from Musk’s declare.
“In truth, there hasn’t been such a stark disconnect between advertising and marketing and actuality because it turned out the Glasgow Wonka Expertise was really this,” he added, displaying a picture of the sad-looking lady dressed as an Oompa-Loompa in a inexperienced wig on the ill-fated Scotland-based Wonka expertise.
“Proper now, we’re all her,” Oliver quipped.
The Wonka Expertise was an unlicensed occasion based mostly on Charlie and the Chocolate Manufacturing facility that passed off in Glasgow, Scotland, in February 2024. Whereas it was promoted as an immersive and interactive household expertise, the occasion was discovered to be nothing greater than a sparsely embellished warehouse. After clients shared movies from the poorly organized occasion, it went viral world wide.
1 12 months in the past as we speak, the notorious ‘Willy Wonka Chocolate Expertise’ passed off. pic.twitter.com/GyHE3DxICg
— Pop Base (@PopBase) February 24, 2025
The comic additionally slammed Musk’s chainsaw stunt at CPAC, the place the tech billionaire took to the stage swinging the ability software above his head like he was Eminem in live performance circa 2000. “That is the chainsaw for forms,” Musk shouted as the group cheered him on.
“I’m not legally allowed to say what I need to occur there, however I can and am pondering it actually exhausting proper now,” Oliver joked. “However a chainsaw would possibly really be a fairly apt metaphor for DOGE on condition that Musk’s reducing rapidly and with out numerous precision.”
He continued, “The federal government’s repeatedly needed to scramble to rent staff they immediately realized had been important. On Monday, we realized they had been making an attempt to rent greater than 300 staff tasked with managing America’s nuclear weapons. Then on Tuesday, the USDA mentioned it unintentionally fired staff who’re engaged on the federal authorities’s response to the avian flu outbreak.”
Final Week Tonight with John Oliver, Sundays, 11/10c, HBO