Jon Stewart on Thursday invited Elon Musk to join his “Weekly Show” podcast, but only after torching the tech billionaire over his rhetoric on alleged voter fraud from undocumented workers — and the supposed danger they pose to U.S. elections.
Stewart made microscopic mincemeat of Musk during this week’s episode.
“Let’s talk about the artist formerly known as Twitter,” Stewart said. “And this gets us to the crux of the irony. Elon Musk, for a long time and really incredibly consistently and vehemently, has pushed this idea that undocumented noncitizen voting is rampant.”
He added, “He’s tweeted about it, I think 1,300 times or interacted with stories about it. The irony of it all is that this guy’s platform, this guy’s algorithm, which he is in charge of, I see his shit on my feed all the time, I don’t ever interact with it, there’s no reason for it to be there.”
Stewart went on to argue that the billionaire X owner has impacted U.S. politics more than “undocumented noncitizen voting” ever will, arguing that Musk continues the “warping of our democracy” by modifying the X algorithm and using his unparalleled wealth to his benefit.
Musk donated more than a quarter billion dollars to help elect President Donald Trump in 2024 and acquired Twitter, now X, for $44 billion in 2022. He has since frequently tinkered with its algorithm, affecting what users see in their feeds, to many curious results.
The world’s richest man nonetheless took umbrage Thursday after spotting a clip on his own platform of Stewart’s comments, writing, “Jon Stewart is an extremely skilled propagandist disguised as a truth-teller.” Musk later added, “He is a great comedian too.”
The duo went on to trade some passive-aggressive barbs.
Stewart returned the insult by quoting his post and writing, “Elon Musk is an extremely skilled propagandist.” He stopped there, suggesting Musk isn’t disguised as anything, which the disgruntled billionaire didn’t seem to catch.
Markus Schreiber/Associated Press
“Not as good as you!” Musk replied. “Stop being so humble.”
Musk has long amplified a conspiracy theory about Democrats “importing” undocumented workers to win elections and to replace white people. Whether he’ll debate this with someone other than a sycophant is unlikely, though Stewart would certainly love to.
He wrote, “Come on the show!! We’ll talk about how self deprecating we both are!!”
