Elon Musk was ruthlessly ridiculed after he attempted to retaliate against Stephen King. The King of Horror took to his X page (formerly known as Twitter) on August 28 to poke fun at SpaceX, Elon’s company, which builds and launches rockets. Last week, SpaceX had to pause its operations.
The American spacecraft manufacturer just delivered satellites into space that caught fire and tipped over while landing, leading to a government investigation.
Highlights
- Stephen King mocked SpaceX on X after a rocket landing failure that caught fire, amassing 4 million views.
- Elon Musk responded to King's jest with a vulgar AI-generated image, which backfired, earning criticism.
- The FAA grounded SpaceX's Falcon 9 rockets and started an investigation following the accident.
- Brazil's Supreme Court upheld a ban on Elon's platform X due to legal compliance issues.
- Brazil fined X over $3 million and banned it until compliance is met, despite Elon's censorship claims.
“Oops,” Stephen, who has notably criticized the billionaire before, wrote on his X post, which amassed 4 million views. “SpaceX launches are on hold after a booster rocket toppled over in flames while landing Wednesday.”
Elon was seemingly left offended by the 76-year-old author’s dig. And on August 29, the 53-year-old CEO of Tesla hit back on X with a vulgar AI-generated image.
Elon Musk was ruthlessly ridiculed
Image credits: Chesnot/Getty Images
Accompanying the caption “D*ck,” the questionable depiction saw the celebrated writer sitting in a forest with a soaked eggplant awkwardly lodged in his mouth.
In the image, Stephen appears to be surrounded by heaps of cash. In the background, Pennywise the Clown, a character from the author’s iconic novel It, lurks menacingly.
Nevertheless, Elon’s attempt to mock Stephen fell short, as a handful of people slammed the world’s richest man in return. An X user commented: “Do people genuinely think this is funny or are they just part of the incredibly f*****g annoying Elon Musk fanboy group.”
Image credits: The Late Show with Stephen Colbert
A person sarcastically highlighted: “Why don’t people want to advertise on Twitter anymore?!”
“I feel like he has a team who troll Twitter for accounts who tweet keywords like ‘Elon’ or anything he’s affiliated with who report to him immediately so he can plan a sassy comeback,” someone penned.
A netizen added: “'I drew a picture where you look dumb’ is such a strange attempt at an insult.”
Elon attempted to retaliate against Stephen King
Image credits: StephenKing
An observer shared: “We will tell our grandchildren what it was like to live in the age of the Sh*tposting Billionaires, and they will hang on our every word.”
A separate individual chimed in: “What makes this infinitely funnier is if you search from:elonmusk @stephenking you'll find hundreds of awful attempts by musk to engage - legitimately a reply guy on his own website - King hasn't responded to a single one.”
All cyberjabs aside, Stephen’s remark about SpaceX appears to be one of Elon’s lesser concerns. The spacecraft company’s Falcon 9 rockets have been grounded after falling over and catching fire.
Image credits: StephenKing
The Federal Aviation Administration grounded the company’s Falcon 9 rockets and ordered an investigation following the predawn accident off the Florida coast, USA, AP News reported on August 28.
While no injuries or public damage has been reported, it is reportedly too early to know how much impact this will have on SpaceX’s upcoming crew flights, one private and the other for NASA.
A billionaire’s chartered flight was delayed just a few hours earlier because of a poor weather forecast, as per AP News.
Stephen took to his X page (formerly known as Twitter) on August 28 to poke fun at SpaceX
Additionally, Elon’s social media platform, X, which he bought in 2022, is facing some setbacks after Brazil's Supreme Court unanimously upheld a decision to block it this week.
All five judges on a Supreme Court panel voted to uphold a ban on X in Brazil. The move on Monday (September 2) backs the decision by Justice Alexandre de Moraes, one of the five judges, to shut down X in Brazil.
The ban, which went into effect on Saturday (September 31), was ordered by Justice Moraes after the company missed a court-imposed deadline to name a legal representative in the South American country, Al Jazeera reported on Monday.
Image credits: elonmusk
“It is not possible for a company to operate in the territory of a country and intend to impose its vision on which rules should be valid or applied,” Justice Flavio Dino said as he joined Justice Cristiano Zanin in siding with Moraes.
He added: “A party that intentionally fails to comply with court decisions appears to consider itself above the rule of law. And so it can turn into an outlaw.”
Justices Carmen Lucia and Luiz Fux also backed Moraes, making the decision unanimous, Al Jazeera reported. However, some of the judges said that the suspension could be reversed if X complies with previous court rulings.
SpaceX is Elon’s company that builds and launches rockets
Image credits: elonmusk
Moraes’ original order, which was released on Friday (August 30), called Elon an “outlaw” who intended to “allow the massive spread of disinformation, hate speech and attacks on the democratic rule of law, violating the free choice of the electorate, by keeping voters away from real and accurate information.”
It reportedly ordered all telecom providers in the country to shut down X. The ban is now to remain in place until X complies with Moraes’ order and pays outstanding fines, which exceeded $ 3 million as of last week.
Meanwhile, the tech mogul decried the move as censorship. On Friday, Elon called the platform the top “source of Truth” in Brazil. He further called Moraes a “dictator.”
Image credits: Real Time with Bill Maher
Since purchasing X, Elon got rid of most of the platform’s content moderation teams and has increasingly pushed far-right content and unsubstantiated claims on his own personal feed, as per Al Jazeera.
He most recently got into a spat with the United Kingdom’s government over anti-migrant and anti-Muslim riots in the country.
However, Brazil has taken serious action against X, one of its largest markets with 40 million users, by threatening fines for using the platform despite a ban.
The ban comes as the South African investor has been struggling with advertising revenue. Moreover, Brazilian President Lula has supported the Supreme Court's decision.
"I love Stephen King," a reader exclaimed
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