Embarrassing Elon Musk X Posts That Made Us Cringe

Elon Musk bought Twitter in 2022, and he changed its name to X in 2023. He posts on his social media platform a surprising amount given how busy we'd think he'd be considering his roles in a variety of other companies, including Tesla, SpaceX, Neuralink, and The Boring Company, not to mention his short-lived time in Donald Trump's government with the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). His activity varies, but he regularly posts and reposts upwards of 100 times a day.

Musk uses X to promote his companies, highlight his political beliefs, try to be funny, and air his grievances. Among other things, Musk used X to attack Donald Trump after the bromance between the two of them came to an end in the summer of 2025.

With the volume of posts from the billionaire and the depth of Musk's cringiness, it was hard to narrow down which were the most ridiculous and embarrassing. But here are some of the best (and by best, we mean worst) posts that had people calling him out.

Elon Musk is often the world's richest man, sometimes coming in at number two behind Oracle founder Larry Ellison, according to the Forbes Real Time Billionaires List. Musk is worth hundreds of billions, thanks to his stake in companies like Tesla and SpaceX. However, with all his wealth, he apparently doesn't like his life all the time. In early 2026, he posted on X, "Whoever said 'money can't buy happiness' really knew what they were talking about." H added a sad face.

It would help if Musk could read the room; there are a lot of people who can't afford groceries right now. His throwing a pity party while he has the most wealth of anyone on the planet didn't garner him a lot of positive reactions in the replies to his post. One person said, "Solution donate all your money and see if you'll be happy broke." Another posted, "Whoever said 'Money can't buy happiness' couldn't afford a platform and a yacht to cry on. So boo-hoo."

It also turns out that Musk is wrong. Money can buy happiness, and it's been proven in a 2021 scientific study. Though it's possible that happiness is in the eye of the beholder. One habit that increases happiness that we think Musk could benefit from trying is to practice gratitude.

Taylor Swift endorsed Kamala Harris on September 11, 2024, in an Instagram post that she signed with the phrase "childless cat lady." It's a phrase that JD Vance used to describe some Democratic politicians, which he later said was sarcastic. Elon Musk appears to have seen Swift's post, and he thought that it would be a good idea for him to chime in. That general sentiment in and of itself was misguided, but what he said was even worse. Musk wrote on X, "Fine Taylor ... you win ... I will give you a child and guard your cats with my life."

We're not sure why he thought that was necessary or appropriate; an attempt at a joke? If so, it really didn't land, and his post got a lot of backlash. One person replied with what so many of us felt about Musk's post, "cringe just called & asked you to stop, Leon." And another said, "Taylor wants precisely zero to do with you."

Singer Azealia Banks got in on the controversy. She posted: "Nah this is actual sexual harassment. Taylor should flex on his ass and sue him for loads of cash n level up to be the most undefeatable richest woman in the history of music. Take his f***ing money taylorrrrrrr!!!!" And Musk's estranged daughter Vivian Wilson gave her thoughts on Musk's post. She wrote on Threads that it was "heinous incel nonsense."

Elon Musk seems to have the humor threshold of a middle schooler in that he finds 420 (cannabis reference) and 69 (sex reference) jokes amusing. He's posted them multiple times. Notably, he appears to revel in the fact that his birthday is on June 28, which is, as he posted on X in 2020, "69 days after 4/20 again haha." One critic replied, "Grow up Elon and delete this."

But Musk didn't grow up, and he's continued to post like this. In 2021, he was asked about the height of the Starship for SpaceX on X: "Booster 4 and Ship 20 chosen to be the first pair to be stacked because of their meme potential? Or was it a stroke of fate loves irony?" He replied: "Total coincidence! Also, booster height was originally 70m, but we eliminated a half barrel for manufacturing efficiency, so now it's ..." Yes, Musk, we get it. It's 69.

And in 2025, he posted about his plans to fund an X show called "69 Minutes." South Carolina Congresswoman Nancy Mace, in another example of attention getting behavior, decided she wanted to add her two cents by saying: "What about 96 minutes, does that count or no? Asking for a friend." So much second hand embarrassment for everyone involved in the whole situation.

Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg don't see eye to eye on everything, and we got an example of that when Musk inexplicably challenged Zuckerberg to a fight. In June 2023, not long before Zuckerberg's platform Threads launched, Musk posted: "I'm up for a cage match if he is lol." People couldn't believe it. One person posted, "I thought the parody account said this at first." Another wrote, "My bet is if he calls your bluff, you find a reason to bottle out of it."

And that person may have been right. Musk posted about the fight again in August 2023: "The fight will be managed by my and Zuck's foundations (not UFC). Livestream will be on this platform and Meta. Everything in camera frame will be ancient Rome, so nothing modern at all." But two days later Zuckerberg, who had taken up jiu jitsu, posted on Threads from his side, "Elon won't confirm a date, then says he needs surgery, and now asks to do a practice round in my backyard instead." And then Musk, apparently needing the last word, fired back with, "Zuck is a chicken," via X.

Each post just gets more embarrassing for Musk. Why are we watching two grown men — some of the richest men in the world — theorize about literally fighting each other and pointing fingers when it doesn't work out? And what a weird thing for Musk to suggest in general. One person couldn't believe the whole thing, writing on X, "it's these types of moments that only convince me further that we are living in a simulation."

When Elon Musk bought Twitter in 2022, he made a big show of entering the headquarters in San Francisco. He walked in carrying a sink, apparently a reference to a meme, and he posted a video of himself doing so with the note, "entering Twitter HQ – let that sink in!" It left us baffled. Did he see the sink somewhere and come up with the idea? Did he have an assistant go out and get him the sink to complete the gag? What happened to the sink when he was done? And the most pressing question: why?

Others were just as confused as we were. "He really is like a 13 year old boy that is the weird kid in class," via X. It did lead to some funnier jokes on X. After one person asked why Musk was carrying a sink, someone quipped, "it goes with the vanity."

Honorable mentions for cringeworthy posts from Musk include his posting jokes about Nazis after he was seen making what appeared to be a Nazi salute — one of Musk's most awkward moments caught on camera. And the time that Musk posted a cowboy hat throwback photo after a weird hat moment in a cabinet meeting.