The unlikely feud between John Oliver and Elon Musk is raging on, with Oliver now calling the X and Tesla CEO a “wounded” man with “thin skin.”
Last month, the British comedian dedicated an entire segment of Last Week Tonight With John Oliver to roasting Musk for, among other things, having the distinction of being “both the richest person in the world and the first person ever to lose $200 billion, which is hard to even wrap your head around,” adding, “It’s like hearing someone ran a marathon after accidentally running 200 miles in the wrong direction.”
A couple weeks later, Musk took to X, formerly known as Twitter, and called Oliver “weak sauce.”
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“It is rather tragic to see an otherwise capable comedian like @iamjohnoliver become weak sauce,” Musk wrote. “The reason he is not very funny these days is because he is too keen to pander to wokeness, which is fundamentally a lie, whereas great humor requires revealed truth.”
On Monday—just hours before Last Week Tonight won the Emmy Award for Outstanding Scripted Variety Series—TMZ asked Oliver why Musk was so upset with him.
“You’re going to have to track him down and ask him. I don’t know. That’s a thin skin,” Oliver responded.
“I cannot possibly pretend to guess what is in that man’s mind at any time. He seems wounded,” the host added. “... He’s definitely sensitive, that is a biological fact.”
When asked about Musk’s accusation that Oliver is pandering to “wokeness,” the comedian said, “I don’t know what that means. I don’t think he could explain what that means, and I think it means nothing. I don’t know literally what he’s talking about.”
On his show in December, Oliver rehashed Musk’s various controversies in 2023 and described the billionaire as “a man who can pull off pretty much any bad-guy-in-a-movie look”.
“There’s ‘I just bought your media company, I’m about to strip you for parts.’ There’s space’s first racist sheriff. And finally, the less fuckable reimagining of Billy Zane’s character in Titanic,” Oliver joked. “Truly, the man has range.”
