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Joyce Carol Oates roasts Elon Musk on X - Magical Realist - Nov 12, 2025
https://www.forbes.com/sites/danidiplacido/2025/11/11/elon-musk-vs-joyce-carol-oates-the-online-feud-explained/
"Billionaire Elon Musk and author Joyce Carol Oates are clashing on Musk’s own social media platform, X, formerly known as Twitter.
What Happened Between Elon Musk and Joyce Carol Oates?
Fierce criticism of Elon Musk is a regular occurrence on X, as Musk has made many unpopular changes to the platform.
There is a possibility that Musk might become the world’s first trillionaire, a position of wealth that was once considered the stuff of science fiction.
After Musk responded defensively to a post criticizing his Tesla pay package, Joyce Carol Oates made a simple observation.
Out of the blue, Oates delivered a devastating takedown, pointing out that Musk never seems to post about the joys of life.
Oates wrote:
"So curious that such a wealthy man never posts anything that indicates that he enjoys or is even aware of what virtually everyone appreciates— scenes from nature, pet dog or cat, praise for a movie, music, a book (but doubt that he reads); pride in a friend’s or relative’s accomplishment; condolences for someone who has died; pleasure in sports, acclaim for a favorite team; references to history. In fact he seems totally uneducated, uncultured. The poorest persons on Twitter may have access to more beauty & meaning in life than the 'most wealthy person in the world.'"
The post quickly went viral, and Musk couldn’t bring himself to ignore it.
First, Musk called the post “demonstrably false” and described Oates as a “lazy liar.” Then, Musk wrote, "Oates is a liar and delights in being mean. Not a good human."
Next, Musk tried insulting Oates’ writing, stating, "Eating a bag of sawdust would be vastly more enjoyable than reading the laboriously pretentious drivel of Oates."
Musk shifted direction, replying under a movie account posting about Edge of Tomorrow, describing it as a “Great movie.”
Minutes later, Musk returned to the topic of Joyce Carol Oates, proposing that she “must be a real downer at parties.”
Perhaps in an effort to appear well-read, Musk then wrote a post recommending the audiobook of Homer’s The Iliad (at 1.25 speed), but included a link to Homer’s The Odyssey by mistake. Musk soon deleted the tweet, but the internet never forgets.
Many X users watched the drama unfold in delight, adding their own commentary and posting memes about the feud.
Oates is known to be a prolific and quick-witted poster on X, and she swooped back in for the kill with another post mocking the world’s richest man, writing “whatever club he's invited to join has been devalued by the invitation.”
Oates also made a post complimenting Vivian Wilson, known as Elon Musk's estranged daughter, writing, “A normal parent would be very proud.”
Mercilessly mocking Elon Musk is an incredibly common activity on X—the world’s richest man can buy an entire social media platform and bend it to his will, but he can’t force the site’s userbase to like him.
Oates' commentary about Musk’s appreciation of art echoes the critical commentary that arose after the world’s richest man was suspected of pretending to be extremely good at video games.
Notably, Musk praised the best-selling FromSoft videogame Elden Ring “as the most beautiful art I have ever seen.”
Unfortunately, Musk greatly diminished his credibility in the gaming community after posting his Elden Ring build, which proved so bafflingly inept that it became a meme.
After the feud had died down, Musk resumed his usual X activity, posting positive commentary about Tesla and Grok.
Thanks to Oates, we might well see more literary and film recommendations from the world’s richest man in the future."
RE: Joyce Carol Oates roasts Elon Musk on X - Syne - Nov 12, 2025
(Nov 12, 2025 07:01 PM)Magical Realist Wrote: Oates wrote:
"So curious that such a wealthy man never posts anything that indicates that he enjoys or is even aware of what virtually everyone appreciates— scenes from nature, pet dog or cat, praise for a movie, music, a book (but doubt that he reads); pride in a friend’s or relative’s accomplishment; condolences for someone who has died; pleasure in sports, acclaim for a favorite team; references to history. In fact he seems totally uneducated, uncultured. The poorest persons on Twitter may have access to more beauty & meaning in life than the 'most wealthy person in the world.'"
Why does she care? I certainly don't. Busy, driven people are often very single-minded and don't have as much leisure time to devote to entertainment and arts. And many people don't use social media as a catch-all for every detail in their lives. You don't have to post to X that you're proud of your child if you just tell them yourself.
It's odd that people are so invested in the lives of others. Maybe they don't have enough going on in their own lives?
RE: Joyce Carol Oates roasts Elon Musk on X - C C - Nov 12, 2025
(Nov 12, 2025 07:01 PM)Magical Realist Wrote: https://www.forbes.com/sites/danidiplacido/2025/11/11/elon-musk-vs-joyce-carol-oates-the-online-feud-explained/
[...] Oates wrote:
"So curious that such a wealthy man never posts anything that indicates that he enjoys or is even aware of what virtually everyone appreciates— scenes from nature, pet dog or cat, praise for a movie, music, a book (but doubt that he reads); pride in a friend’s or relative’s accomplishment; condolences for someone who has died; pleasure in sports, acclaim for a favorite team; references to history. In fact he seems totally uneducated, uncultured. The poorest persons on Twitter may have access to more beauty & meaning in life than the 'most wealthy person in the world.'"
The post quickly went viral, and Musk couldn’t bring himself to ignore it. [...]
It's actually kind of bizarre to be applying the "supposed" standard of the average user to a guy who owns several massive enterprises, and information with respect to the latter thereby perhaps being the primary reason most people follow the account. I presume Musk is simply continuing what he posted about on Twitter before he owned it and turned it into X.
He shouldn't have responded in a defensive way with all that ensuing stuff, which then suggests that he accepts her standards and should be conforming to them. OTOH, if he actually does frequently prattle about his personal life and interests, then I suppose it's just a rash demonstration that he indeed does such. But doing it impulsively right after her comments conveys the appearance that she's the one doing the chain yanking.
Of course, if Elon does occasionally troll others about not having a life (Taylor Swift the cat lady), then that's going to stimulate payback, or celebrities of lesser magnitude playing on such incidents (in reverse) to generate publicity for themselves.
RE: Joyce Carol Oates roasts Elon Musk on X - Yazata - Nov 12, 2025
I'd heard the name Joyce Carol Oates, but had no idea who she was. Apparently she is a novelist, author of 50 some novels that I've never heard of, let alone read. I don't see that as any loss.
Elon on the other hand captains five multi-billion dollar corporations, most of which he built up from nothing, that together employ more than 150,000 people.
But more than that, he's a visionary. All of his enterprises seem aimed at making science fiction into reality. Tesla dominates electric vehicles in most of the world, and is at the forefront of AI: self-driving cars and robots. SpaceX has almost singlehandedly revived the old dreams of human space exploration from their post-Shuttle doldrums. Starlink possesses the potential to become the world's largest telecommunications company, providing high-speed internet and direct-to-cell service anywhere on Earth including its remotest and least-served areas. Neuralink is restoring function to quadriplegics and holds out the promise of brain-machine interfaces for everyone who wants it (think of the VR possibilities). xAI aspires to build a superhuman AI scientist to probe deeper into the fundamental mysteries of the universe. And X might arguably be the most consequential, having become the world's most popular social-media platform, the world's leading source of breaking news, that restored free-speech to parts of the world where it was under deadly threat. Many of us would credit him with having rescued American (and perhaps world) democracy itself by once again allowing all points of view to be heard.
She asks where are Elon's feelings. Well, there they are. He wears them on his sleeve.
It's one thing to spend one's life creating imaginary characters and then describing their imaginary feelings. It's another thing to have world-historical impact out here in the real world.
And it's ironic that she boasts of her superior humanity while engaged in a gratuitous unprovoked attack on somebody else. One would think that if she was so humane and empathetic, that she would have come across nicer, trying to attract Elon's attention with friendship instead of creating a confrontation right out of the gate.
RE: Joyce Carol Oates roasts Elon Musk on X - confused2 - Nov 16, 2025
I do try to dislike Elon Musk .. no success so far.
RE: Joyce Carol Oates roasts Elon Musk on X - Syne - Nov 16, 2025
Classism ain't enough?