Video of Elon Musk Called 'Space Karen' Viewed 9m Times Amid Twitter Crisis

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Giulia Carbonaro is a Newsweek reporter based in London, U.K. Her focus is on the U.S. economy, housing market, property insurance market, local and national politics. She has previously extensively covered U.S. and European politics. Giulia joined Newsweek in 2022 from CGTN Europe and had previously worked at the European Central Bank. She is a graduate in Broadcast Journalism from Nottingham Trent University and holds a Bachelor's degree in Politics and International Relations from Università degli Studi di Cagliari, Italy. She speaks English, Italian, and a little French and Spanish. You can get in touch with Giulia by emailing: g.carbonaro@newsweek.com.

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A video showing anti-Elon Musk insults including "supreme parasite" and "Space Karen" that were projected onto Twitter's headquarters last night has gone viral on the social media platform, getting more than 9 million views.

The projections were shot from a building across the road from Twitter's San Francisco base after hundreds of workers quit the company and thousands were laid off following the billionaire's October takeover.

Other messages directed at Musk included "#Musk's hellscape," "#StopToxicTwitter," "launching to bankruptcy" and "Elon Musk, STFU!"

Musk had been called "Space Karen" in a viral 2020 tweet posted by a scientist criticizing the Space X founder for questioning the effectiveness of COVID-19 testing.

"Something extremely bogus is going on," Musk wrote on his Twitter account after saying he had tested both positive and negative.

Bioinformatics scientist Emma Bell responded to the billionaire, saying: "What's bogus is that Space Karen didn't read up on the test before complaining to his millions of followers."

The tweet exploded and the "Space Karen" nickname—combining Musk's space exploration ambitions with a meme mocking overly entitled, privileged white women—stuck to him.

The mockery of Musk comes at what are tense times for the new owner of Twitter.

After finally concluding his $44 billion deal to acquire the social media platform in October, his newly introduced measures and leadership are seemingly driving away both users and employees.

On Thursday, hundreds of employees reportedly decided to resign from the company after being asked to either leave or stay "to build a breakthrough Twitter 2.0."

The answer was a mass exodus which, following Musk's decision to fire half of Twitter's 7,500 full-time workers, could threaten its capacity to continue operating effectively.

It is not yet clear just how many people decided to resign on Thursday. According to sources quoted by the New York Times, Musk and his advisers held meetings with some Twitter employees deemed "critical" to convince them to stay, but hundreds of resignations had been handed in by Thursday evening.

Twitter users are discussing moving to alternative sites—including Mastodon—and the hashtag #RIPTwitter is trending among doomsday-style predictions for the social media platform.

Newsweek has reached out to Twitter and Musk for comment.

Elon Musk
Elon Musk in Berlin, Germany on December 1, 2020. A video showing anti-Musk messages being projected onto Twitter's headquarters in San Francisco has gone viral on social media. Hannibal Hanschke-Pool/Getty Images
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About the writer

Giulia Carbonaro is a Newsweek reporter based in London, U.K. Her focus is on the U.S. economy, housing market, property insurance market, local and national politics. She has previously extensively covered U.S. and European politics. Giulia joined Newsweek in 2022 from CGTN Europe and had previously worked at the European Central Bank. She is a graduate in Broadcast Journalism from Nottingham Trent University and holds a Bachelor's degree in Politics and International Relations from Università degli Studi di Cagliari, Italy. She speaks English, Italian, and a little French and Spanish. You can get in touch with Giulia by emailing: g.carbonaro@newsweek.com.

Writers Page

Giulia Carbonaro is a Newsweek reporter based in London, U.K. Her focus is on the U.S. economy, housing market, property ... Read more