Thursday, February 20, 2025

Elon Musk’s Been Given An Embarrassing New Nickname

Another ridiculous COVID-19 tweet from Elon Musk earned him a new nickname, and I reckon this one is going to stick around for some time to come.

[imagesource: Joe Skipper / Reuters]

Elon Musk and Twitter have always been a sketchy combination.

It would take too long to list every mishap and ridiculous tweet, so we’ll summarise with a reminder that even Tesla took out a court order against him to stop him from talking about the company online.

Then a pandemic came along, and as usual, he had to throw in his two cents.

He started out by stating “the coronavirus panic is dumb”.

Some sound scientific insight, there.

He then moved on to suggest that chloroquine should be considered as a treatment, followed shortly by a tweet declaring that children were “essentially immune”.

There’s more, but let’s just say that he hasn’t been covering himself in glory.

His latest quip, however, caught the attention of a bioinformatics scientist who specialises in analysing complex data, Dr Emma Bell.

Here’s Elon’s tweet before we continue:

And Dr Bell’s response:

Owned.

Per MarketWatch, Dr Bell’s tweet, which has drawn upwards of 20 000 retweets, has afforded Musk a new name: Space Karen.

If you’re unfamiliar with the ‘Karen’, it typically refers to a white woman using her privilege to get her way. You’ll know you’re in the presence of a Karen when you hear the words “I’d like to speak to the manager”. Please see the ‘Karen’ memes for further info.

The man formerly known as Elon Musk has inspired his own set of memes:

Head here for more.

Over the weekend, Space Karen was forced to stay home while SpaceX launched four astronauts to the International Space Station, marking the first fully operational crewed mission for SpaceX.

This follows on from a test mission in May that carried NASA astronauts Douglas Hurley and Robert Behnken, both test pilots, to the space station for a brief stay.

Why? Because, according to him, he “most likely had a moderate case of COVID-19”.

That aside, Space Karen is laughing all the way to the bank.

According to the BBC, he is now poised to become the world’s third-richest person.

Tesla’s share price surged about 14% in New York following the news it was being added to the index. Given Mr Musk’s 20% stake in Tesla his net worth rose to $117.5bn, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.

His wealth has jumped $90bn this year as Tesla’s share price has continued to rise.

Well, you can’t be a Karen without privilege.

[source:marketwatch&bbc]