You’d be forgiven if you didn’t know that acclaimed octogenarian author Joyce Carol Oates — author of Them and Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been — is a prolific, excellent poster. Yes, as in someone who posts online. But she is, and has long been.
Billionaire Elon Musk recently discovered this fact on X, his very own platform. And now he’s beefing with Oates, or at least trying to prove he is definitely Not Mad. So…what happened? Let me explain.
Why is Elon Musk mad at author Joyce Carol Oates?
In short, Oates surgically owned Musk on X. She quote-tweeted a post about Musk and wondered what joy or meaning he derived from life.
She wrote:
“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.'”
It was a devastating read on the world’s richest man. It quickly went very viral. Musk didn’t love it. He posted about it because Musk posts constantly. He called it “demonstrably false.” He said, “Oates is a liar and delights in being mean. Not a good human.” He claimed, “Eating a bag of sawdust would be vastly more enjoyable than reading the laboriously pretentious drivel of Oates.”
You know what they say about which dogs holler and why.
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What’s the latest with the Musk vs. Oates beef?
To be clear, of course, there have been instances of Musk saying he enjoyed things in culture. Journalist Ronan Farrow this year spoke about how Musk appreciates — and often greatly misreads — science fiction.
But if you parse through Musk’s timeline, you do see a picture of someone who mostly posts to boost his companies, air grievances, and shitpost about political stuff. It’d be super weird to see him posting about Monday Night Football or Taylor Swift’s new album. (Though, he did post about Swift’s private jet and offered to father a child for her. So…yeah.)
But since the Oates debacle, Musk seemed hell-bent on proving he likes stuff, which is kind of funny in and of itself. He’s been replying to posts about movies, just saying things like “good movie.” People have been joking about Oates, 87, getting to Musk, especially on left-leaning Bluesky.
For the uninitiated, Oates has long been a True Poster. There are articles about it. She’s even put her foot in her mouth multiple times, a sign of someone who simply cannot help posting online. (Speaking of, please don’t search “Joyce Carol Oates’ foot” — she once tweeted a truly gross, super viral picture of her foot overtaken by poison ivy. Again, a True Poster.)
Since the original post, Oates has intermittently posted about Musk, while also discussing literature and cats. “Truly, it was out of curiosity: why a person with unlimited resources exhibits so little appreciation or even awareness of the things that most people value as giving meaning to life,” Oates wrote.
So, it’s actually not that weird that an Oates vs. Musk beef popped up this week. But it is great entertainment.