Elon Musk Takes Charge of Meme Brigade Following US Election Results

New Delhi: Elon Musk, owner of X, took to social media to lead the meme brigade in response to the U.S. election results and Donald Trump 's historic win on Wednesday, posting a mix of sharp commentary and outright mockery.

As the initial results began to roll in, Musk was among the first to start posting. He shared a familiar image from 2022, when he walked into X's headquarters holding a sink. This time, he reused the same caption, "Let that sink in" but placed the image against the backdrop of the White House.

About an hour later, Musk shared an image of the SpaceX Starship rocket with the caption, "The future is gonna be fantastic." Meanwhile, another viral meme featured a morphed video of Trump dancing to Ranveer Singh 's "Malhari" from *Bajirao Mastani*, adding to the lighthearted reactions surrounding the election results.

X user Peter Hague, who identifies himself as a solutionist with an astrophysics PhD on his page, posted a picture of Instagram-famous squirrel Peanut, who was euthanised by US officials, with a heading "Tell Kamala. I want her to know it was me." The Joe Biden administration had come under fire from Trump supporters over the issue.

A user named Rothmus made a reference to Algerian boxer Imane Khelif who won an Olympic gold medal at Paris to post, "I haven't seen a man beat a woman this bad since the Olympics ." Khelif faced intense scrutiny over misconceptions about her womanhood.

There were many memes that used edited images of Trump celebrating and dancing. One of these was with Musk to the background tune of Bee Gees' "Stayin' Alive".

In another post, Trump is seen carrying two garbage bags with images of Biden and Harris.

During a campaign event, Biden had referred to Trump's supporters as "garbage". However, Trump sought to use this to his advantage when he entered a rally site in a garbage truck and asked his supporters, "How do you like my garbage truck? This truck is in honour of Kamala and Joe Biden." A photo taken during Trump's stop at a McDonald outlet in Pennsylvania serving fries at the drive-thru was also used with a caption "Bye bye, Kamala" in another post.

(with agency inputs)