John Oliver dedicated the final episode of 2023 of his show, “Last Week Tonight,” to taking down billionaire Elon Musk, poking fun at his idiosyncrasies and warning of the potential danger that could come from his immense power.
For 30 minutes, Oliver touched on Musk’s acquisition of Twitter, Musk’s hard turn to the right politically, his occasional embrace of antisemitic conspiracy theories, and the accomplishments and setbacks he has faced leading Tesla and SpaceX.
“Elon has made news all year, from test launching the most powerful rocket ever built to just this week having to recall 2 million cars due to safety concerns. He even challenged Mark Zuckerberg to a cage fight, to which Zuckerberg replied, send me location. And may I suggest to both of them: interior volcanoes,” Oliver said.
“And then of course there is Twitter. He now calls it X, but the rest of us still call it Twitter. He officially acquired it 12 months ago, and since then, it has been one fiasco after another, with the most recent coming when he tweeted his agreement with this antisemitic post calling the great replacement theory ‘the actual truth,’” he said.
“That caused many big advertisers to flee. And then in the midst of denying any antisemitic content, Elon decided to taunt the sponsors who had left.”
Oliver then played a clip from an interview in which Musk said that he didn’t want those advertisers on his platform. ”If somebody is going to try to blackmail me with advertising? Blackmail me with money? Go f— yourself,” Musk said in the interview. “Go. F—. Yourself. Is that clear? I hope it is.”
Oliver then delivered the segment’s punchline: “Wow it is hard to say what’s most embarrassing there: the fact that the world’s richest man is playing the ‘you’re not breaking up with me. I’m breaking up with you’ card. Or that he’s doing it … while wearing a jacket from Ralph Lauren’s midlife crisis collection.”
Oliver also pointed out Musk’s mixed record in business.
“Thanks to the roller coaster fortunes, he can claim the twin distinctions of being both the richest person in the world and the first person ever to lose $200 billion, which is hard to even wrap your head around. It’s like hearing someone won a marathon after accidentally running 200 miles in the wrong direction,” Oliver said.
Oliver then returned to Twitter, highlighting Musk’s apparent obsession with the platform and what that means for his relationship with the world.
“History is littered with titans of business who were shitty or broken people, from Thomas Edison from Henry Ford through Steve Jobs, the difference is, by and large, they didn’t open up their brain to let the whole world have a constant look inside, but Elon does,” Oliver said. “And the glimpses we get can be terrifying.”
Oliver wrapped up the piece, warning of Musk’s views apparently becoming more extreme over time.
“The fact that Elon seems to be getting increasingly radicalized is a big problem because we’ve put a lot of power into his hands and much more than you may realize,” Oliver said.
“The fact is, whether we like it or not — and the answer is absolutely not — a huge number of very important things going forward are going to depend on how Elon is feeling, which is a terrifying thing to say about anyone, but especially this guy.”
The Hill reached out to Musk through X for comment on Oliver’s show.