Elon Musk Tries Desperately to Show He is a Actual Human Being

Elon Musk is the wealthiest man on the planet. However primarily based on his posts on X, the billionaire has by no means appeared extra indifferent from humanity. And after one high-profile writer identified that reality over the weekend, Musk now appears decided to show that he’s an actual human individual with actual human pursuits.

It began within the early morning hours of Saturday when, at 3:20 a.m. Central Time, Musk shared a video along with his followers on X. “Grok Think about immediate: She smiles and says ‘I’ll at all times love you,’” Musk wrote, sharing the ensuing AI video.

Grok Think about immediate:

She smiles and says “I’ll at all times love you” pic.twitter.com/cjDu3MuDCZ

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 8, 2025

The video is eerie, to say the least. It begins with an AI-generated girl giving a quite involved expression earlier than smiling in that pretend approach actual people typically do with out utilizing their eyes. Smiling with out your eyes is famously a trademark of a pretend smile. The audio can be not very properly synced to the video, as you’ll be able to see above.

However regardless of the technical limitations of Musk’s Grok, the actual story right here is simply how a lot the wealthiest individual on the planet appears to be combating an absence of human connection. Musk’s need for love and companionship is comprehensible, if that’s what’s occurring. It’s what all of us need in our lives. It’s solely human. Nevertheless, it’s simple to see why that is likely to be laborious for Musk, particularly relating to a romantic associate, given his attitudes on girls and their function in society.

Again in July, Musk pushed the concept that girls have been “anti-white” as a result of they’re physically weak. He’s described empathy as a weak spot, and has been blamed for contributing to the deaths of an estimated 600,000 folks via his function in destroying USAID whereas the pinnacle of DOGE, in keeping with the New Yorker.

Musk is disconnected from humanity and insulated by his wealth, however he additionally appears to be affected by a self-imposed exile right into a fantasy world of his personal creation. The Tesla CEO bought Twitter in late 2022 and promptly set about altering the platform’s algorithm to verify he noticed extra reward from his followers. He allowed anybody with $8 to purchase a nugatory blue “verification” checkmark and tweaked the best way Twitter (now X) works to verify these replies are on the high of all posts. Successfully, Musk made it in order that the folks prepared to pay him cash are the folks whose replies would be the most seen.

The billionaire’s AI endeavors, with Grok and his firm xAI, appear to serve that very same purpose of making a fantasy universe for one man. Musk instructed Joe Rogan throughout a current podcast that he predicts just about all the pieces folks devour will finally be AI-generated. And it means that’s the world he needs to reside in.

“Most of what folks devour in 5 – 6 years, possibly before that, will probably be simply AI-generated content material. So music, movies…” Musk instructed Rogan.

The podcaster replied that he cherished AI-generated music, seeming to verify Musk’s thesis among the many demographic of extraordinarily wealthy, 50-something males.

It was in opposition to this backdrop that Joyce Carol Oates entered the dialog on Saturday. Oates, the 87-year-old writer, tweeted a quite devastating commentary about Musk’s personal social media habits.

“So curious that such a rich man by no means posts something that signifies that he enjoys or is even conscious of what nearly everybody appreciates— scenes from nature, pet canine or cat, reward for a film, music, a e-book (however doubt that he reads); delight in a good friend’s or relative’s accomplishment; condolences for somebody who has died; pleasure in sports activities, popularity of a favourite group; references to historical past,” Oates wrote.

“In actual fact he appears completely uneducated, uncultured. The poorest individuals on Twitter might have entry to extra magnificence & that means in life than the ‘most rich individual on the planet,’” Oates concluded.

It’s true. Musk spends his days on X largely whining about trans folks, palling round with far-right extremists, and retweeting quotes highlighting his brilliance. Musk’s personal tweets are largely centered on his personal petty grievances, but it surely’s his retweets that actually give some perception into how disconnected he’s from humanity. Scroll his feed at any given level, and the retweets aren’t about information he finds attention-grabbing or tales that he needs to raise for unselfish causes. It’s nearly at all times about Musk, his corporations, and his merchandise.

Oates clearly obtained beneath Musk’s pores and skin. He despatched out a sequence of offended tweets, saying her tweet was “demonstrably false,” calling her an “offended liar,” and writing issues like, “Oates is a liar and delights in being imply. Not a great human.”

Musk then proceeded to make an effort to show he was all in favour of issues like motion pictures. And it was fairly unhappy to observe. The billionaire began replying to random tweets from the X account @cinesthetic, which posts about movies. “Man on Fireplace is nice!” Musk wrote in reply to a tweet concerning the 2003 film. “Nice film,” Musk wrote in reply to a different tweet concerning the 2014 film Fringe of Tomorrow.

“Fifth Aspect has nice fashion,” Musk replied in one other. It ought to most likely be famous that the video he was replying to opens with a shot of Gary Oldman’s character within the 1997 movie, who occurs to have the haircut Musk was sporting in 2021. And none of Musk’s very quick tweets engaged with something deeper. It was pathetically performative after getting pantsed by Oates.

Bluesky customers ridiculed Musk’s try at showing to love regular human things, as that social media platform’s left-leaning person base tends to do.

In equity, Musk does submit about books and flicks typically. He’s really useful folks hearken to The Iliad on audiobook no less than half a dozen occasions lately. However he appears to usually get confused about a lot of the media he talks about, together with issues like The Hitchhiker’s Information to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams.

“I took from the e-book that we have to prolong the scope of consciousness in order that we’re higher in a position to ask the questions concerning the reply, which is the universe,” Musk is quoted as saying in Walter Isaacson’s biography.

The New Yorker marveled at Musk’s characterization in 2023, even questioning whether or not he’d really learn the e-book. The journal defined that he basically misunderstands the e-book’s message, which is definitely an indictment of imperialism, not a celebrating of seeing how far you’ll be able to attain.

However that’s arguably much less embarrassing than Musk’s ideas on the 1982 sci-fi movie Blade Runner. The CEO was describing his new Tesla Cybertruck car and why it was futuristic: “It’s an armored personnel provider from the longer term – what Bladerunner would have pushed.” There isn’t a character named Bladerunner within the movie Blade Runner.

Elon Musk stands out as the richest man on the planet, however cash can’t purchase the power to care about your fellow people. Nor can it provide the cultural information to correctly declare the title of Nerd King—one thing he desperately aspires to attain along with his awkward tweets.

Musk has constructed a man-made world the place he could make robotic girlfriends profess their love, with out the messiness of attending to an precise human’s wants or needs. Different X customers have even made enjoyable of his need to make AI girlfriends prior to now, with even a few of his largest followers recognizing it as weird. He’s put up guardrails on X in order that a lot of the messages he sees each day are fawning adulation, one thing that fewer folks on the platform appear to note. However each every now and then, an individual like Oates will completely eviscerate him. And he merely doesn’t know easy methods to deal with it.

With out the power to self-reflect, Musk appears doomed to repeat this cycle of embarrassment for the remainder of his life. Whereas Tesla shareholders voted simply final week to offer him an almost $1 trillion pay package deal that may very well be paid out over the next decade, there are days when it looks like Elon Musk is essentially the most impoverished man within the nation.