Elon Musk, who was booed mercilessly by a stadium full of people on Sunday during a Dave Chappelle stand-up show, has deleted tweets that sought to explain away the jeers. Musk had claimed the crowd was “90% cheers” and that there was a fight in the audience that stopped him from speaking normally, both apparent lies that were deleted by the billionaire late Monday. And Twitter users took the opportunity to absolutely eviscerate Musk over his unbelievable claims.
Musk, now the second wealthiest person in the world after dropping in the Forbes ranking on Monday thanks to Tesla’s share price, was booed repeatedly by the San Francisco crowd on Sunday night, though it’s not precisely clear why they were booing. Some people speculated a number of former Twitter employees were likely in the crowd, a plausible theory given the fact that Musk instituted massive layoffs and firings after he bought the company in late October.
But it really could’ve been any number of things, including his flirtations with unhinged QAnon conspiracy theories, his misrepresentations of how Twitter’s content moderation team previously worked, his embrace of right-wing politics, or his bizarre hatred of trans people.
Musk’s tweets on Monday tried to give other reasons for his clear embarrassment at being booed by such a large crowd.
“Technically, it was 90% cheers & 10% boos (except during quiet periods), but, still, that’s a lot of boos, which is a first for me in real life (frequent on Twitter). It’s almost as if I’ve offended SF’s unhinged leftists … but nahhh,” Musk tweeted.
Given Chappelle’s recent rightward lurch in public, it’s hard to imagine the crowd in San Francisco on Sunday was a bunch of “unhinged leftists,” paying at least $US80 ($111) per ticket. But that wasn’t Musk’s only excuse.
“A major fight broke out in the audience just as I was about to talk, so didn’t get to say much,” Musk tweeted.
If Musk was really unable to speak because a fight was breaking out, no one onstage seemed to acknowledge it. The only true hostility from that night appeared to be the massive boos for Musk and Chappelle saying, “you shut the fuck up,” clearly frustrated with all the booing. Musk deleted both tweets by late Monday, perhaps because they sounded ridiculous.
“It was more boos than I’d ever heard,” one attendee of the show told NBC News on Monday.
But you really don’t need to take anyone’s word for it when videos of the show are available online. When Gizmodo originally wrote about the scene we included videos embedded from Twitter, which showed just how loudly people were booing Musk for sustained periods of time. But, oddly enough, the videos were deleted within an hour. Thankfully, we saved them all before they were deleted and you can see for yourself.
Needless to say, memes making fun of Musk have been incredibly popular over the past 24 hours. Click through the slideshow to see more chucklegoofs at Musk’s expense.
Musk the Clown
The clown makeup meme made an appearance.
Boo-Usk
This riff on a classic Simpsons bit was incredibly popular.
Masterful Gambit, Sir
This tweet from July was also lobbed at Musk more than a few times following his appearance in San Francisco.
Not Owned
Others took inspiration from that classic Dril tweet about turning into a corncob.
I’m Rich
Memers also took inspiration from Hannibal Burress on the Eric Andre Show.
Get Ready
And, yet again, more Simpsons memes.
Ghislaine Maxwell
Photos of Musk posing with Ghislaine Maxwell also made it into Musk’s replies with some frequency. Musk has said the convicted sex trafficker was photobombing him, but that doesn’t appear to be entirely true.
Muu-usk
Another version of the classic Simpsons bit with Smithers and Mr. Burns went with a slight variation.
Elon the Engine
Musk also got the Thomas the Tank Engine treatment.
Weird Nerds
And, of course, this classic of the genre, when Musk’s fans come out of the woodwork to defend a billionaire’s honour.