A look at Elon Musk’s love of juvenile humor: from jokes about 420 and 69 to ‘Titter’

In 2023, the billionaire changed the sign at Twitter’s San Francisco headquarters to “Titter.” Musk said on X, formerly Twitter, in April 2023 that the “W” on the Twitter sign at the company’s San Francisco headquarters had been painted over.

“Our landlord at SF HQ says we’re legally required to keep sign as Twitter & cannot remove ‘w’, so we painted it background color,” the billionaire tweeted. 

Before Musk announced the change, several Twitter users had posted pictures of the sign in which the “w” appeared to have been taped over. 

The billionaire’s joke struck a chord with one of his former lieutenants at Twitter, who called him to task for it.

In 2021, Musk joked that he wanted to start a school that would have the acronym “TITS,” adding that it would have “epic merch.”

“Am thinking of starting new university: Texas Institute of Technology & Science,” he tweeted.

The tweet received some backlash online and was later cited in a sexual harassment lawsuit against Tesla.

Tesla just started rolling out its highly anticipated “Actually Smart Summon” feature, which the company referred to as ASS for short, after multiple delays. 

In a repost announcing the arrival of the feature on social media, Tesla AI wrote, “S3XY getting that ASS.”

The feature allows drivers to summon their vehicle to them or to a spot they choose by selecting “COME TO ME” or “GO TO TARGET” on the summon tab of the Tesla app. 

Musk announced in 2023 that Twitter would start eliminating legacy blue checks for users that had not subscribed to Twitter Blue. This was a nod to one of his classic jokes, as the date is also an unofficial holiday for cannabis smokers.

The billionaire has incorporated the number 420 into many of his ventures over the years.

In January 2023, Musk said he thinks 420 has “karma,” but he’s not sure if it’s “good or bad.” The Tesla CEO made the comments during a trial over a tweet in which he said he had secured funding to take the car company private at $420 per share.

The number was also part of Musk’s Twitter deal. He took the company private at $54.20 per share in October 2022.

Despite all the weed references, Musk has said he doesn’t “even know how to smoke a joint.” The billionaire said in 2022 on the Full Send podcast that he and the “whole of SpaceX” had to be drug tested for a year after he smoked weed on a 2018 podcast with Joe Rogan.

In 2021, Musk said it was “a total coincidence” that stacking SpaceX’s Super Heavy Booster 4 and the Starship prototype Ship 20 would reveal the number 420. He also volunteered that the booster’s height was 69 meters after the company cut it down for “manufacturing efficiency.”

In 2020, Musk changed the starting price of the Tesla Model S to $69,420 and listed Tesla’s “S3XY” shorts at a price of $69.42. 

Musk has also pointed out that his birthday is 69 days after 4/20.

The day before he officially bought Twitter, Musk showed up at the company’s headquarters with a bathroom sink. 

“Entering Twitter HQ – let that sink in!” Musk tweeted after spending months preparing to battle the social media company in court over his attempt to back out of the $44 billion purchase.

Musk has also incorporated his sense of humor into his products at Tesla.

The Tesla CEO has said he named the company’s electric cars Model S, Model 3, Model X, and Model Y because the letters spell “S3XY.”

In 2019, he joked that “Ford killed ‘SEX.'” Tesla had wanted to name its sedan the Model E, but the name was already registered under Ford, so he opted for the name Model 3, according to a report from NBC.

In June 2023, he also changed the logo on Twitter’s home page from a bird to a Shiba Inu — a nod to Dogecoin, a meme currency that Musk has previously boosted.

Musk differentiated his xAI chatbot Grok from competitors like ChatGPT by making it funny. 

“Grok is designed to answer questions with a bit of wit and has a rebellious streak, so please don’t use it if you hate humor,” xAI said in a post on X in November.

The CEO has criticized other chatbots for being too woke, and said in Spaces that it can provide a “really good” vulgar roast if prompted.

In 2022, The Boring Company, began selling a perfume called “Burnt Hair” that went for $100 a bottle.

These products join a long list of of wacky merchandise, from The Boring Company’s “Not-A-Flamethrower” to Tesla’s red satin “S3XY” shorts — a dig at Tesla short sellers.

The billionaire has taken aim at several tech executives, including Bill Gates and Jeff Bezos.

In 2022, Musk appeared to mock Gates’s weight by posting a tweet with an emoji of a pregnant man after he accused the Microsoft founder of shorting Tesla’s stock.

Similarly, Musk said in 2021 that he sent Bezos a silver medal after his wealth surpassed the Amazon founder’s fortune and he temporarily took on the role of the richest person in the world.

Musk has also repeatedly challenged Mark Zuckerberg to a cage match.

He’s also taken shots at OpenAI CEO Sam Altman numerous times and posted a meme about OpenAI taking iPhone users data after Apple announced its partnership with the company.

Musk has recently ramped up the political jabs, but he’s been coming at politicians for years.

In 2022, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said she was considering ditching her Tesla after she got into a spat with Musk on Twitter.

“Tired of having to collectively stress about what explosion of hate crimes is happening bc some billionaire with an ego problem unilaterally controls a massive communication platform,” she tweeted.

“Stop hitting on me, I’m really shy,” Musk responded. 

Ocasio-Cortez initially said she was referring to Zuckerberg but later deleted the tweet.

Musk has also taken shots at Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer.

Musk compared Trudeau to Hitler in a 2022 tweet he later deleted and recently referred to Starmer as “two-tier Keir.”

As Musk becomes increasingly involved in the election, he’s been posting AI-generated images of politicians like Kamala Harris in strange scenarios — and getting a real kick out of it.

After posting a deepfake of Harris in a communist outfit, Musk received backlash from X users in the comments who claimed that the photo could spread misinformation. 

Musk has also posted several recent AI-generated photos of Brazilian Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes as Voldemort. The photos have been posted amid an ongoing feud between the two about X being banned in Brazil. 

“Grok ‘Generate an image as if Voldemort and a Sith Lord had a baby and he became a judge in Brazil,'” Musk said in a post on X with a photo of the prompted image attached.

In 2022, The New York Times reported that Musk is good friends with the deadpan comedian Nathan Fielder and often tries to make him laugh at parties. One comedy writer told the publication that they believe Musk has a “deep-seated need to be recognized as funny.”

The billionaire also appears to be friendly with Justin Roiland, one of the creators of the animated comedy series “Rick and Morty,” and appeared to defend Roiland after he was charged with domestic abuse. The TV writer was later cleared of the charges, according to a report from the Associated Press.

Musk tried to buy The Onion at one point, The Verge reported. 

In 2018, The Onion appeared to poke fun at the billionaire and his attempts to recruit writers from The Onion to his own venture.

Musk is also a fan of The Babylon Bee, a conservative satire site, and even sat down for an interview with the media company in 2021. One of the first things he did when he took over Twitter was reinstate the Babylon Bee’s Twitter account,  which had been previously banned for an anti-trans tweet.

Musk also voiced Elon Tusk in an episode of “Rick and Morty” in 2019.

Over the years, the billionaire has made a number of cameos in movies and TV shows, including recurring roles on “South Park” and “Rick and Morty.” Musk often plays himself or variations of himself on the shows.

In 2018, Musk was sued for defamation after he called a British diver who helped rescue a group of boys that were trapped in a cave a “pedo” on Twitter. Musk later apologized for the tweet and won the lawsuit in 2019.

At the time of the incident, billionaire investor Ron Baron told Musk to stop tweeting.

“You should not respond to any criticism in the news or on Twitter,” Baron told Musk in an email from July 15, 2018 that was uncovered in a lawsuit against Tesla and Musk. “If something really upsets you, go for a walk around the factory. Get an ice cream cone. Just don’t use Twitter.”

A year later, Musk had to pay $20 million for a settlement with the Securities and Exchange Commission after he tweeted that he had “funding secured” to take Tesla private. While Musk’s plans to take Tesla private weren’t a joke, it’s an example of how the billionaire’s presence on X has impacted his companies.

Even Musk has acknowledged that at times he has shot himself in the foot with his humor and active tweeting.

He told BBC in 2023 that he probably “should not tweet after 3:00 a.m.”

“Have I shot myself in the foot multiple times? Yes,” Musk said. “If you’re gonna tweet something that maybe is controversial, save it as a draft then look at it the next day, and see if you still want to tweet it.” 

In the past, Musk has said he’s prone to tweeting from the toilet.

“I’m tweeting more or less stream of consciousness,” he said at a TED Talk. “I’m literally on the toilet or something, like, ‘Oh this is funny’ and then tweet that out.”