Elon Musk is poised to be the world’s first trillionaire. At that point, we guess you probably stop counting how much money you have: when you check your balance, it just shows an infinity symbol. But though Musk can afford to cater to his every passing whim in life, is he happy?
A peek at his X feed suggests not. Rather than luxuriating in the world’s many delights, Musk appears to spend his time doomscrolling, yelling at people online, and reposting the thoughts of strange far-right crackpots.
Enter famed author Joyce Carol Oates, bestselling novelist, writer, Pulitzer Prize nominee, and all-around literary icon. In response to a particularly egotistical post from Musk (that, frankly, I suspect was written by AI), Oates unsheathed her pen and proved it’s mightier than the sword:
So curious that such a wealthy man never posts anything that indicates that he enjoys or is even aware of what virtually everyone appreciates— scenes from nature, pet dog or cat, praise for a movie, music, a book (but doubt that he reads); pride in a friend’s or relative’s… https://t.co/xMxQGSVqEt
— Joyce Carol Oates (@JoyceCarolOates) November 8, 2025
“So curious that such a wealthy man never posts anything that indicates that he enjoys or is even aware of what virtually everyone appreciates— scenes from nature, pet dog or cat, praise for a movie, music, a book (but doubt that he reads); pride in a friend’s or relative’s accomplishment; condolences for someone who has died; pleasure in sports, acclaim for a favorite team; references to history. In fact he seems totally uneducated, uncultured. The poorest persons on Twitter may have access to more beauty & meaning in life than the “most wealthy person in the world.””
Hey, yeah! He doesn’t do any of that stuff!
If someone like Oates wrote something so cutting about me, I would crawl into a hole and just start pulling the dirt over myself. This brutal takedown clearly cut deep, because when Musk saw it he launched into an angry, impotent diatribe:
An 87 year old novelist posting that he had no soul seemed to get to him pic.twitter.com/wUKmf1cNdC
— Jacob Silverman (@SilvermanJacob) November 10, 2025
According to Musk, Oates is a “lazy liar”, who “delights in being mean”, that is “not a good human”, and “eating a bag of sawdust would be vastly more enjoyable than reading the laboriously pretentious drivel of Oates”. To which I can only say, physician – heal thyself!
If nothing else, Musk is living proof that money cannot buy happiness. Yes, he will never have to worry about being poor, but he’s trapped within a hell of his own making, surrounded by insincere sycophants who only care about his money, perpetually aware that everyone is only pretending to laugh at his attempts at humor, and knowing that nobody will mourn him when he’s gone.
We bet he wishes he could travel back in time to when 18-year-old Musk was clutching that monkey’s paw and wished to be the richest person in the world. The paw curls, the wish comes true, but never as you want it to be.
