Well, we didn't have Elon Musk getting his ass handed to him by a multiple Pulitzer nominee on our 2025 vision boards. At 87 years old, author Joyce Carol Oates is remarkably active on X (Twitter). And over the weekend she did some of her most incisive writing in years - at the expense of the platform's owner! Video: Gayle King's HILARIOUS READ Of This AI 'Singer' Is A Must-See! It started with an observation of Elon fighting with someone about why he deserves his soon-to-be trillionaire status. Joyce simply noted that she's seen a lot of his posts - but never anything relatable as a human: "So curious that such a wealthy man never posts anything that indicates that he enjoys or is even aware of what virtually everyone appreciates- scenes from nature, pet dog or cat, praise for a movie, music, a book (but doubt that he reads); pride in a friend's or relative's accomplishment; condolences for someone who has died; pleasure in sports, acclaim for a favorite team; references to history. In fact he seems totally uneducated, uncultured. The poorest persons on Twitter may have access to more beauty & meaning in life than the 'most wealthy person in the world.'" So curious that such a wealthy man never posts anything that indicates that he enjoys or is even aware of what virtually everyone appreciates- scenes from nature, pet dog or cat, praise for a movie, music, a book (but doubt that he reads); pride in a friend's or relative's... https://t.co/xMxQGSVqEt - Joyce Carol Oates (@JoyceCarolOates) November 8, 2025 Damn. Ouch. The post has over 4.8 million views and 83k likes as of this writing. And Elon saw it right away. We know because, unlike what you'd expect of a near-trillionaire who could go innovate or run a company or enjoy literally any pleasure available on this earth... He started blasting the octogenarian to defend his honor as a really cool and normal guy, actually: "Oates is a liar and delights in being mean. Not a good human." Oates is a liar and delights in being mean. Not a good human. - Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 9, 2025 "Everything she says in her post about me can be shown to be demonstrably false with a simple search. Oates is a lazy liar and ... an abuser of semicolons" Everything she says in her post about me can be shown to be demonstrably false with a simple search. Oates is a lazy liar and ... an abuser of semicolons! - Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 9, 2025 "Eating a bag of sawdust would be vastly more enjoyable than reading the laboriously pretentious drivel of Oates" Eating a bag of sawdust would be vastly more enjoyable than reading the laboriously pretentious drivel of Oates - Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 9, 2025 Plenty of Elon's faithful defended him as well, but the overall reaction seemed to be firmly in the Blonde author's favor. One commenter called it "the most severe, graceful dissection" of Musk they'd seen. And Joyce responded, casually throwing out another banger: "Truly it was out of curiosity: why a person with unlimited resources exhibits so little appreciation or even awareness of the things that most people value as giving meaning to life. Just minimally well to do people donate to charities, local museums & libraries & the like; they support the commonweal. & unlike the very wealthy these people pay high income taxes." Truly it was out of curiosity: why a person with unlimited resources exhibits so little appreciation or even awareness of the things that most people value as giving meaning to life. Just minimally well to do people donate to charities, local museums & libraries & the like; they... https://t.co/uTUPB2pbQR - Joyce Carol Oates (@JoyceCarolOates) November 10, 2025 Yow! Damn! And another brought up how Elon keeps escaping from one place to another - and now plans to escape earth - as evidence he may be as unhappy and unfulfilled as Joyce surmises. She responded: "'wherever he goes, he wants to leave'- that's because when he gets there, he has brought his own self along; & whatever club he's invited to join has been devalued by the invitation." OMG, we have never seen someone just toss off H-bombs like that! Of course, we don't need the Twitterati to tell us Oates' words made an impact. Elon himself made it obvious he was rattled by the criticism - in the hours after Joyce's comment about him never seeming to talk about culture, he started posting about books and movies out of nowhere! He commented "Great movie" on a post about Edge of Tomorrow, responded to a post about The Fifth Element by saying it had "great style." Suddenly an ad popped up on X for a site with a listicle that specifically says he "reads a lot." But the one everyone is pointing to? Elon found a post to respond to from over a year ago in which someone gave the very bro-tastic literature observation: "There is so much alpha in books from 1870 to 1930, it's unreal." A tweet from August of 2024? What did he do, search his mutuals for the word "books" to find something to say?? Well, he did have a