Elon Musk faces backlash after bizarre tweet complaining pronouns are an ‘esthetic nightmare’

The CEO of Tesla, founder of rocket manufacturer SpaceX, and father of X Ӕ A-12, still cannot wrap his head around the conversations around pronouns.

Elon Musk was widely mocked and criticised on social media on Wednesday after he complained that displaying preferred pronouns is not aesthetically appealing.

“I absolutely support trans, but all these pronouns are an esthetic nightmare,” the billionaire tweeted, responding to an article on the technology news website CleanTechnica.

The article criticised Musk for a recent tweet where he mocked the displaying of personal pronouns online – which many cis people do in an effort to be more inclusive of those who are transgender or non-binary.

He then seemingly tried to backtrack a bit, and tweeted an article saying that in 2017, Tesla was the most LGBTQ+ inclusive workplace – which did little to convince people of anything:

“Most of that score is based on 1) policies protecting against discrimination, such as respecting pronouns and 2) maintaining an inclusive culture, such as respecting pronouns. Points can also be deducted for things like... this tweet,” said Charlotte Clymer, a prominent LGBTQ+ advocate.

“Complaining about pronouns (that you likely never actually struggle with) is not supportive,” another person added.

While Musk’s tweet does not come as a surprise – earlier this year he faced a similar backlash after simply tweeting “pronouns suck” – others were quick to mock his aesthetic displeasure, invoking the fact that he and musician Grimes named their baby X Ӕ A-12.

“You named your kid a wifi password,” one person joked. “Guy who named his kid X Æ A-12 cannot fathom using 3 different pronouns,” another person tweeted.

Following the birth of their baby in May, Elon and Grimes said they would following a  gender-neutral parenting style, which makes you wonder what Musk might do if his child ends up identifying as ‘they’, for example.

Either way, at this point we are over his commentary: “My heart goes out to all the weird 16 year olds who think Elon Musk is cool for posting Reddit memes and mocking trans people on Twitter,” one person wrote. “Get well soon.” 

MORE: Megan Thee Stallion’s letter from a U.S. Representative means so much to allyship