Elon Musk: The real president is 'whoever controls the teleprompter'

Tesla and Space X CEO Elon Musk criticized President Joe Biden for setting the US down a path similar to that of Venezuela's, and called Biden out for being an empty suit, saying that whoever "controls the teleprompter" is "the real president."

"The path to power is the path to the teleprompter," Musk said in a podcast released on Monday.

"I do feel like if somebody were to accidentally lean on the teleprompter, it's going to be like Anchorman," said Musk, referring to the 2004 Will Ferrell Comedy where the main character, news anchor Ron Burgundy, reads anything that is written on the teleprompter.

"This administration doesn't seem to get a lot done," Musk continued. "The Trump administration, leaving Trump aside, there were a lot of people in the administration who were effective at getting things done."

He also said that the reason for inflation was "obvious," saying that "a zillion" dollars have been printed.

"I mean, the obvious reason for inflation is that the government printed a zillion amount of more money than it had, obviously," he said when asked about Amazon founder Jeff Bezos's claim that the White House was using misdirection to "muddy the topic" of inflation.

"So it's like the government can't just, you know, issue checks far in excess of revenue without there being inflation, you know, velocity of money held constant," Musk continued.

"If the federal government writes checks, they never bounce. So that is effectively creation of more dollars. And if there are more dollars created, then the increase in the goods and services across the economy, then you have inflation, again, velocity of money held constant."

"If the government could just issue massive amounts of money and deficits didn't matter, then, well, why don't we just make the deficit 100 times bigger? The answer is, you can't because it will basically turn the dollar into something that is worthless," he continued.

"Various countries have tried this experiment multiple times," Musk said. "Have you seen Venezuela? Like the poor, poor people of Venezuela are, you know, have been just run roughshod by their government."