Elon Musk First Lady memes show the Twitter owner dressed as a woman and declare him the new Melania to mock him for cozying up to former and future President Donald Trump. Following the election, Musk ingratiated himself among the Trump family and incoming administration so fast that he's already been a part of a family photo that didn't include Melania, leading to jokes that he's going to become her replacement.
The memes began after a rumor circulated that Musk kicked author Stephen King off of Twitter for calling him Trump's new first lady. These turned out to be false, but that didn't stop the gag from spreading.
These memes largely consist of Photoshopped or AI-generated images or footage putting Musk in clothing associated with women or making him pregnant. One particularly disturbing example is an AI video of Musk with a large and bare pregnant belly cuddling tenderly with Trump, who holds the other man's stomach from behind.
Liberals are using this eye poison to mock Musk for becoming so cozy with Trump in such a short period, accusing him of trying to weasel as much power out of the upcoming presidency as possible. They may also hope to increase the pressure on both men as people theorize that two egos that big couldn't possibly stand each other for long.
On Nov. 6, Donald Trump Jr.'s daughter Kai posted a photo on Twitter of what she called the "whole squad," but Melania was as absent as she was during the vast majority of the Trump presidential campaign, with another person taking her place.
Everyone else in the photo is a direct family member, and then there's Elon, standing awkwardly between Eric and Lara, holding a child that blocks most of Eric from view. Jokes about Musk being the new first lady soon followed, as was probably inevitable.
On Nov. 9, CNN commentator Ana Navarro echoed these comments on air, giving yet more fuel to the idea. Two days later, Twitter user @Photero posted one of the earliest examples of an image of Musk in FLOTUS drag with the stated goal of getting the Elon Musk First Lady meme to go viral.
The prevailing theory is that Musk is after more money and power than he already has. The billionaire officially endorsed Trump in July 2024 and appeared at a campaign rally in October, then began to offer money to people who helped gather signatures for a right-wing petition.
Musk already enjoys billion-dollar government contracts around his companies SpaceX and Starlink, and by getting in good with Trump, he stands to gain further contracts and influence. Trump has already promised him the head seat on the new Department of Government Efficiency.
Other Twitter users on both the left and right have pointed out that dressing up a man in women's clothing to laugh at him would be an action condemned as sexist and transphobic by liberals if a conservative person had done it. Some of these memes have gone as far as calling Musk a "sissy," a well-known homophobic term.
Trans people and their supporters are particularly disappointed and feeling all the more abandoned after the Harris campaign and Democrats in general seemed to turn away from them to court center-leaning Republicans. LGBTQ+ groups criticized the party for backing off from supporting trans rights and not having a single trans speaker at the DNC.
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