‘Paperweights’: Rachel Maddow unleashes mockery on $400M award for 'armored Teslas'

Reports that the State Department appears poised to award a $400 million contract to none other than President Donald Trump’s top campaign donor Elon Musk was met with unabashed mockery by an exasperated Rachel Maddow.

The MSNBC host during her show’s opening monologue Wednesday delivered a scornful rebuke of Musk’s Tesla Motors as she launched into a deep criticism of the development involving spending taxpayer funds to buy armored Teslas – but not without having a little fun at the tech billionaire’s expense.

Maddow was gleeful as she reminded viewers that during Musk’s unveiling of the Tesla Cybertruck, he promised to show the public “how undentable his magic truck was.”

She then rolled a clip of the car company’s chief designer throwing an object at the vehicle and easily shattering two of its windows.

“The truck has its fans just like everything Mr. Musk does has its fans, but it has definitely had its share of problems and embarrassments,” Maddow said Wednesday. “And, you know, frankly, from the very first seconds that it was introduced to the world, it has had a large share of not living up to the hype, especially the part about these trucks being unbreakable and indestructible, and having this impermeable armored glass,” she said through laughs.

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Maddow marveled at how Musk, who also happens to lead the Department of Government Efficiency, which is currently pushing mass layoffs of civil servants and other drastic cutbacks to the federal budget, “apparently somehow convinced” the government to make a $400 million taxpayer purchase “of production units of armored Teslas."

“So, since I think the only supposedly armored production vehicles Tesla makes are these hilarious trucks, this really appears to be the State Department announcing, putting in writing, that it's going to spend $400 million buying these paperweights from Elon Musk,” the host said while chuckling.

She added that the latest move from Musk and Trump came as the pair claimed “Boy, they sure found a lot of waste in the government.”

“And isn't it great what they're doing? And definitely not at all illegal or profoundly corrupt for the president to put someone with billions of dollars in government contracts personally in charge of deciding what happens to government contracts," Maddow said.

Watch the clip below or at this link: