Elon Musk (left) and Taylor Swift (right). Joel Saget/AFP via Getty Images; Dimitrios Kambouris via Getty Images
Elon Musk responded to Taylor Swift’s post about winning Time’s “Person of the Year award” on X — formerly Twitter — joking that she may see some “popularity decline” after being given the accolade.
Swift, who in 2023 became a billionaire and dominated headlines around the world, gushed in a post on X about the glowing profile Time had written of her.
In reply to her post, she received a comment from the billionaire owner of the platform, who first said: “Congrats.”
Musk then added: “Some risk of popularity decline after this award. I speak from experience lol.”
Musk previously won Time’s “Person of the Year” in 2021, but the choice received backlash and provoked criticism around a variety of topics, including Tesla’s poor treatment of workers, and his evading government regulations.
Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts took the opportunity to pile on Musk at the time saying on X: “Let’s change the rigged tax code so The Person of the Year will actually pay taxes and stop freeloading off everyone else.”
Musk, who is the CEO of at least five different companies including Tesla, SpaceX, Neuralink, The Boring Company, and X, made Time’s 100 Most Influential People list for the fifth time in 2023.
However, the profile was anything but flattering, and instead he was described by journalist Kara Swisher as “the world’s richest online troll.”
“It’s a shame, because much of what he has tried to do over his career — even if some of it is still an aspiration — has been bold and inspirational, especially compared with most of the more anodyne techies for whom a better online dating service is the peak of innovation,” Swisher wrote in the profile.
“But under Musk’s erratic rule, Twitter has become a nonstop grievance tantrumwe must all endure, and he wastes far too much of his time fiddling on his toxic violin while it burns. What’s the opposite of progress? Elon Musk 2023.”
Musk bought X in a $44 billion deal in October 2022 and made a series of unpopular and controversial changes from laying off over half the company’s staff, introducing a subscription fee for a blue check verification on the platform, and most drastically, rebranding the company to X.
