Elon Musk holds up a chainsaw as Argentina's President Javier Milei gives two thumbs up during the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in National Harbor, Maryland, U.S., February 20, 2025. REUTERS/Nathan Howard
Tech billionaire Elon Musk is spending the time he's not slashing the federal government, suspending vital government services, or threatening reporters with prison for doing their jobs, to make crude penile and sexual jokes, wrote Ali Breland for The Atlantic — and it reveals something about the movement he's cultivating.
Last week, noted the report, "The world’s richest man briefly changed his display name on X to 'Harry Bōlz,' apparently after learning that USAID had spent millions on circumcisions in developing countries. 'Circumcisions at a discount, now 50% off!' he posted. 'Judicial dicktatorship is wrong!' he added, the same day that a federal court ruled against the Trump administration’s chaotic federal-funding freeze."
Musk's crude attack on the U.S. Agency for International Development — a key target of Trump and Musk for dramatic cuts that helped save more than 20 million lives in the HIV/AIDS epidemic — didn't go unnoticed by Breland.
"Penis jokes are the kind of juvenile humor that Musk is known for," wrote Breland. "After all, this is the same billionaire entrepreneur who began his ownership of Twitter by posting a video of himself carrying a sink into the company’s headquarters with the caption, 'Let that sink in.' He has named Tesla’s vehicles so that the lineup spells 'S3XY,' as in 'sexy.' In 2018, he posted that he would take Tesla private at $420 a share (which he maintains was not a cannabis joke). I could go on."
This type of humor, Breland continued, is emblematic of something broader.
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"Trolling in its various forms (posting about balls, trying to offend, making political opponents squirm) has gone from an occasionally used tool to a unifying touchstone of an entire political faction. Call it a coalition of the crass," Breland wrote.
And this isn't a new strategy for the right.
"The practice has existed since at least 1947, when a 21-year-old William F. Buckley and some of his friends showed up at a rally for the left-wing presidential candidate, Henry Wallace, wearing ironic bohemian getups. Rush Limbaugh built his career on delivering a steady stream of trolling sound bites on his radio show. But trolling has become more integral to the right in the Trump years. Trump himself loves to troll — addressing posts to 'haters and losers' — and the Pepe the Frog meme blew up during his first term as the go-to way for the MAGA faithful to troll the left."
This strategy, in short, is about deliberately tormenting and upsetting political opponents, Breland continued — and it gets a lot uglier than simple genital humor.
"Musk, too, has belittled the marginalized: Just this week he ridiculed a blind person, and in the past has mocked a disabled X employee (which he later apologized for), and rolled back protections against anti-trans harassment on Twitter," wrote Breland. "No one is hurt because of a joke about balls, but such jokes are still a middle finger to Musk’s intended audience of liberals and government workers. The point is to laugh in their faces as he dismantles the things that they care about, in an attempt to break them. It is not enough to beat your adversaries. They must be humiliated."