Elon Musk acted as hype man for President Donald Trump at his farewell news conference at the White House by urging the assembled journalists to cheer a short video clip he played at the start of the event.
The tech mogul is leaving his government perch Friday after cutting thousands of government jobs, scooping up sensitive private data on millions of Americans and alienating his Tesla customer base, but Trump started off his exit event by playing video of CNBC's Rick Santellli praising his tariffs "Squawk Box" earlier that day.
"It really does call into question some of the conventional wisdom," Santelli says in the clip, which Trump showed on an iPad, "and it's going to be interesting to see what happens next month, when we get this number, or we some of these other numbers, like current accounts. We'll see how they fare, because I've been watching these numbers a long time, I don't think Ive ever see a trade deficit cut in half in one month."
"Not bad," Trump said, "not bad."
A small smattering of applause broke out in the Oval Office, but Musk encouraged more.
"Come on, guys," Musk said, laughing and swaying back and forth as he stood alongside the president.
More applause broke out and Musk gave two thumbs up in approval.
Watch the video below or at this link.