It’s also part of the antagonism towards the federal workforce and an extension of the “deep state” conspiracy theory.

I can’t remember what this specific rhetorical device is called, but he’s luring people in with something that appears true at face value so that they arrive at a conclusion they wouldn’t logically arrive at otherwise: Hitler personally didn’t kill millions of people, but the Nazi bureaucracy and military did. Therefore, Hitler isn’t to blame for all the Nazi atrocities, the bureaucracy was.

Musk is redirecting blame, like you pointed out, away from leadership and instead leading people to the conclusion that if government were smaller, then evil wouldn’t have happened. What is especially stupid about this line of reasoning is that it will eventually lead to ideas like, “if we give the president more power and consolidate all decision making to a small group, then public servants won’t mindlessly perpetuate evil,” as if this isn’t exactly what happened in every authoritarian regime right before they started doing real evil.