Elon Musk wields chainsaw and dances on stage in bizarre appearance

The power tool was meant to symbolise cuts to bureaucracy.

Musk, who is leading President Donald Trump's new Department of Government Efficiency, was gifted the blinged-out power tool by Argentina's President Javier Melei.

The chainsaw alluded to slashing government spending, a symbol Melei has used to promote cost-cutting measures in his own country and which Musk has praised him for in the past.

"This is the chainsaw for democracy," Musk told the crowd. "Legalize comedy . . . It seems like we should have a good time, you know."

According to BBC News' Rachel Looker, Musk received the loudest applause and the biggest standing ovation of any speakers at the event.

The 53-year-old, who was sporting sunglasses and a black Maga baseball cap, says he would have never thought one year ago he'd be in his current role working with the Trump administration.

"We're trying to get good things done but also have a good time doing it and have a sense of humor," he told Newsmax host Rob Schmitt.

After Milei left the stage, Musk engaged in a running back-and-forth with the television presenter touching on a number of topics.

The world's richest man accused the Biden administration of abandoning American astronauts and addressed being "villainized" by legacy media organizations in the U.S., saying that his decision to buy social media platform X was to secure "freedom of expression."

He also called legacy media an echo chamber and said it should be defunded by the federal government.

Musk's madcap appearance comes during a week in which Trump initiated a war of words with Ukranian president Volodymyr Zelensky.

The 47th President of the United States labelled Zelensky a ‘dictator’ and accused Ukraine of starting the war.

He launched a verbal attack on the Ukranian leader, saying: “We have a situation where we haven’t had elections in Ukraine — where we have martial law, essentially martial law in Ukraine, where the leader in Ukraine, I mean, I hate to say it, but he’s down at 4 percent approval rating.

“Yeah, I would say that — you know, they want a seat at the table,” Trump added. “You could say the people have to, wouldn’t the people of Ukraine have to say, like, it’s been a long time since we’ve had an election. That’s not a Russia thing. That’s something coming from me and coming from many other countries.”

Trump also repeated his claims that he could have prevented Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, that would have “given them almost all of the land… and no people would have been killed.”

“They chose not to do it that way,” he added.