Elmo

From an Italian contraction of Erasmo, cognate with Erasmus. Also a German short form of Elmar.
* By folk etymology seen as a short form of Elmer.

Twitter was far from perfect before Elmo happened to it but it’s a total shitshow now!

2022 December 12, marie_cast (@marie_cast@toad.social), Mastodon:

It is certainly conceivable that Elmo’s ragtag of leftover desperate engineers put out a feature without properly testing it. 😂

2023 February 8, Jim Stewartson (@jimstewartson@toad.social), Mastodon:

Incredible how low Twitter has sunk since Elmo fired the grownups.

2023 March 19, Alice (@alicek@mas.to), Mastodon:

(derogatory or humorous) A nickname for South African-born tech entrepreneur Elon Musk.


Tesla

Borrowed from Serbo-Croatian Tesla /Тесла, from Proto-Slavic *tesla. Cognate with German Dechsel, Dutch dissel, Russian тесло́ (tesló), Polish ciosła, Latin tēla. Doublet of tela and toile. The name of the automotive company is a tribute to Nikola Tesla.

bor+

Inventor and physicist Nikola Tesla (1856–1943).


Tesla

If they happen to have shares worth a couple of hundred million each, that’s a bonus, but other than their Teslas and Playstations,^([sic]) they can think of nothing they need to spend it on, although if the auto-pilot self-driving software isn’t released soon they’ll have to actually learn to drive rather than just leaving the cars plugged in all day.

2017, David Joland, chapter 16, in The Biggest Idea in the World, CreateSpace, →ISBN, page 87:

We live in Silicon Valley, home of the gazillionaires you read about with their Teslas and private jets.

2017, Lisen Stromberg, “Money Matters, Plan Accordingly”, in Work PAUSE Thrive: How to Pause for Parenthood Without Killing Your Career, Dallas, Tex.: BenBella Books, Inc., →ISBN, part III (Your Career, Your Way), page 251:

Add Teslas to the list of items that are costing more money during the pandemic.

2021 June 1, Chris Isidore, “Elon Musk blames rising Tesla prices on raw material costs”, in CNN:

I felt deja vu as I recalled a video in which a Tesla owner slammed on the brakes after his car appeared set on crashing headlong into a construction site.

2021 November 18, Matt McFarland, “We tried Tesla’s ‘full self-driving.’ Here’s what happened”, in CNN:

But we think the wealthy are living in Silicon Valley with their Teslas, at-home espresso machines, and live-in nannies.

2024, Jessica Hurlbut, “The Pinch of Finances: Jesus, Cut the Ties Money Has on My Heart”, in Unlimited Motherhood: Overcome 12 Limits That Overwhelm and Conflict Our Hearts, Minneapolis, Minn.: Bethany House Publishers, →ISBN, “The Man Dressed in Black”:

battery electric vehicle
battery electric vehicle

(automotive) A car manufactured by Tesla, Inc., a battery electric vehicle (BEV) automaker founded in 2003.


Musketeer

This was the rock that Musk and his Musketeers planned to build their company on.

2014 June/July, Charles Morris, “The early days of Tesla”, in Charged: Electric Vehicles Magazine, number 14, page 62:

Mr Vance comes across as a “Musketeer”, someone who believes in Mr Musk’s power to reshape the world.

2015 July 2, “Fortune favours the brave”, in The Economist:

The young Musketeers, who apparently have your personal information at their fingertips, aren’t just inexperienced – they appear completely unqualified.

2025 February 8, Arwa Mahdawi, “Meet the young Musketeers, our unelected overlords employed by ‘Doge’”, in The Guardian, →ISSN:

(informal) A fan, supporter or partisan of Elon Musk.


hyperloop

Musk began developing another transportation project in 2012, something he calls the Hyperloop.

2012, Scott Griffiths, Eric Elfman, Beyond Genius, →ISBN, page 210:

Whatever – the result is the same: they usually jump in front of the nearest hyperloop shuttle.

2014, Gideon Defoe, Elite Dangerous: Docking is Difficult, →ISBN:

There is a small handful of groups working in earnest on making Elon Musk's dream of a hyperloop a reality, but none are so high profile as Hyperloop Technologies.

2015 September 16, Casey Newton, “Hyperloop Technologies has a CEO — and plans to open its test track next year”, in The Verge:

Then in 2013 we all find out who Elon Musk is, the Tesla, Space X^([sic]) and hyperloop guy.

2015, Landry Hunt, Jeremiah Nichols, The System, →ISBN:

Will the fate of the hyperloop concept be different from the maglev and be introduced quickly and successfully on the market?

2015, S. Van Themsche, The Advent of Unmanned Electric Vehicles, →ISBN, page 369:

Musk also features in the other piece of bad news for the tech enthusiasts - the effective collapse of the hyperloop, as the technical limitations of the idea have become all too apparent. [...] Firstly, in February, Virgin announced it was abandoning plans to create a passenger-carrying hyperloop system and made the 100 staff working on the project redundant. Then, early in November, it was revealed that Musk's test tube for hyperloop has been dismantled with no explanation, with the site now being used as a car park.

2022 November 30, Christian Wolmar, “The railway endures as driverless cars hit the buffers...”, in RAIL, number 971, page 57:

A theoretical high-speed transportation system, proposed by Elon Musk, in which pressurized capsules ride on an air cushion driven by linear induction motors and air compressors through reduced-pressure tubes.


Teslaphile

Teslaphiles are also eagerly awaiting the release of the Model X, which is currently teased on the manufacturer’s website.

2014 August 6, Ben Geier, “Tesla says it has resolved a Chinese trademark dispute”, in Fortune:

While we were topping off the Tesla at the Supercharger in Gilroy, California, the gathered Teslaphiles laughed at the i8’s minuscule trunk.

2014 August 11, “2014 Tesla Model S P85+ vs. 2014 BMW i8 Comparison”, in Motor Trend:

As Teslaphiles like to say: “Elon Musk didn’t set out to make the best luxury electric car, he set out to make the best car.”

2015 November 4, Henry Payne, “Payne: The Ludicrous Tesla Model S P90D”, in The Detroit News:

An aficionado or fan of Tesla, Inc. or its products, particularly the vehicles.


Elon

en-prop

Elon (countable and uncountable, plural Elons)

Elons (plural)
Elan (alternative)
Ilan (alternative)
Ilon (alternative)
Alan (alternative)
Alon (alternative)
Eilan (alternative)
Eilon (alternative)
Ailan (alternative)
Ailon (alternative)

Borrowed from Hebrew אֵילֹן (ʼÊlōn, literally “oak tree”).

bor+

The aftermath of the 2024 US presidential election has been a boon to Elon Musk.

2024 November 22, Ramishah Maruf, “Elon Musk has never been richer. He’s now worth nearly $350 billion”, in CNN:

(countable) A male given name from Hebrew.

Elon Musk (b. 1971), South African-Canadian-American billionaire entrepreneur.


Elon time

From Elon Musk's overly optimistic projections of launch/completion dates.

(automotive, astronautics, journalism) An estimated time of arrival (ETA), that is exceedingly optimistic, needing to be doubled or tripled to arrive at a reasonable estimate. Used by journalists, editorialists, and fans, concerning the ETAs of milestones and products from commercial spacelaunch provider SpaceX and electric car maker Tesla, Inc.; as well as other endeavours of Elon Musk.


Muskian

en-adj

Muskian (comparative more Muskian, superlative most Muskian)

more Muskian (comparative)
most Muskian (superlative)

“Who is the best PR person in the world?” he asked in a very Muskian fashion.[…]He’s an optimist by nature, and it can feel like he makes calculations for how long it will take to do something based on the idea that things will progress without flaw at every step and that all the members of his team have Muskian abilities and work ethics.

2015, Ashlee Vance, Elon Musk: How the Billionaire CEO of SpaceX and Tesla Is Shaping Our Future, Virgin Books, →ISBN, pages 2 and 231:

Why anyone still pays any heed to Muskian pricing pronouncements is beyond me.

2019 December 5, David Booth, “Motor Mouth: The good, the bad and, whoa, ugly!”, in Windsor Star, page B12:

Together, the essays in this volume seek to assemble withdrawal as a concept that, in turn, may help us to identify, regroup, and understand apparently diverging political and socio-cultural phenomena ranging from[…]to the Trumpian/Muskian fantasies of intergalactic colonization disenchanted by Sharma in the coda to this book.

2020, Pepita Hesselberth, Joost de Bloois, “Introduction: Toward a Politics of Withdrawal?”, in Politics of Withdrawal: Media, Arts, Theory, Rowman & Littlefield, →ISBN, page 3:

Hindsight even allowed for Muskian humor.[…]Musk had forecast rapid scale, but his team dismissed it as Muskian hyperbole.

2022, Jimmy Soni, The Founders: Elon Musk, Peter Thiel and the Company that Made the Modern Internet, Atlantic Books, →ISBN:

Of or pertaining to Elon Musk (born 1971), entrepreneur and business magnate.


Elongated Muskrat

LL-Q1860 (eng)-Flame, not lame-Elongated Muskrat.wav

Musicians to arrive at studio in Tesla electric sports cars made by Elongated Muskrat.

2016 October 22, Graham Layton (@Grahamszs), Twitter:

Send Elongated Muskrat to Mars so he can watch anime and leave us alone...

2019 June 24, The Obscure Show (@TheeObscure), Twitter:

I wish people would remember that Elongated Muskrat is not some kind of genius inventor or whatever, he was born one inch from home base and he's bought other people's ideas from day one.

2022 April 15, Mother Bones, Inbox 36K (@_L1vY_), Twitter:

(derogatory or humorous) South African-born tech entrepreneur Elon Musk.


Elno

Humorous alteration of Elon, possibly to deter namesearching.

I fact checked Elno in a Birdwatch on his own $44 billion dollar site over his inability to understand GraphQL queries.

2022 November 11, Brianna Wu (@briannawu@mstdn.social), Mastodon:

I blocked Elno back in Nov and haven't seen a 🐦 from him since.

2023 February 14, SallyBlack (@toastygirl@mastodon.online), Mastodon:

Elno is driving regular people off of twitter.

2023 April 16, AudreyOnTheGo (@AudreyOnTheGo@mstdn.social), Mastodon:


Space Karen

Coined with reference to Musk's company SpaceX and the pejorative sense of Karen (“a person exhibiting an exaggerated sense of entitlement”).

By the way, journalists shouldn't use Twitter DMs either. They're not safe. Especially with Space Karen in charge.

2022 November 11, Chris Trottier (@atomicpoet@mastodon.social), Mastodon:

A stream of insults aimed at new Twitter boss Elon Musk has been projected onto the company’s San Francisco headquarters after workers were locked out of their offices. Insults included “supreme parasite”, “mediocre manchild”, “worthless billionaire” and “space karen”, according to footage posted online.

[2022 November 18, Anthony Cuthbertson, “Elon Musk ‘space karen’ insult projected onto deserted Twitter HQ”, in The Independent, London:

Watching Space Karen burn Twitter down is actually quite funny 😂

2022 December 16, MrMajestikness (@MrMajestikness@mastodon.social), Mastodon:

it’s one of the key reasons I left the night Space Karen took over.

2023 February 1, Jason Allen (@JAllen@mstdn.social), Mastodon:

WALLACE: Kara, your boy, Elon Musk, made a lot of news,
SWISHER: Not my boy.
WALLACE: Hit me with your best shot.
SWISHER: Well, I’m trying to think of something that. So that Space Karen doesn’t sue me. So, let me say he’s troubled.

2023 December 2, The Chris Wallace Show, spoken by Kara Swisher, via CNN:

Over on the ever-lovely PC Pro podcast […] we refer to him as “Space Karen”. But despite what you might think of Mr Musk, it’s clear that he has assembled teams of extremely capable engineers in the various companies that he runs.

[2024 June, Jon Honeyball, “Nailing down which device had gone rogue was the sort of wasted morning that consumes many coffee beans”, in PC Pro, page 113:

(derogatory) A nickname for South African-born tech entrepreneur Elon Musk.


Phony Stark

Blend of phony (“fraudulent or fake”) + Tony Stark, referencing the fictional business magnate, inventor, and playboy from the Marvel franchise.

blend

so, yeah, five years on and people on Twitter just kinda endured the Nazis, but now Phony Stark might just tank the whole thing anyway.

2022 November 10, Muhammad (@muhammad@mastodon.social), Mastodon:

Phony Stark seems to want to drive Twitter off a cliff for whatever reason.

2023 February 6, Simon Zerafa (@simonzerafa@infosec.exchange), Mastodon:

I'm not mad at anything Phony Stark does to Twitter. I am mad (or at least dumbfounded) at respectable professionals still using that service, though.

2023 April 5, Leon Cowle (@leoncowle@hachyderm.io), Mastodon:

“As always,” Elon patronised, “please try to stay as close to the truth as possible, even for stuff you don’t like.” Likewise, Phony Stark. Likewise.

2023 October 10, Marina Hyde, “Look at the horror of the Israel-Hamas war, then at Elon Musk’s X site. It’s clear he’s not fit to run it”, in The Guardian:


SpaceXer

Allen took everything he saw here in stride, and the younger SpaceXers respected him as a wise old-timer.

2007, Michael Belfiore, Rocketeers: How a Visionary Band of Business Leaders, Engineers, and Pilots Is Boldly Privatizing Space, Smithsonian Books, →ISBN, page 181:

The Space Florida and SpaceXers claim that hundreds of jobs would be created at the refuge launch sites.

2013 June 9, Karl Wickstrom, “Wildlife or missiles? We’ll have both, please”, in Press Journal, Scripps Treasure Coast Newspapers, page 3B, column 4:

The original SpaceX team consisted of about 20 SpaceXers, as they call themselves. […] “We start with that layer – young engineers, young talent, young technicians – who don’t really know what’s impossible,” a SpaceXer said. […] The total number of employees were now 150 SpaceXers.

2014, Erik Nordeus, The Engineer: Follow Elon Musk on a Journey from South Africa to Mars, Leanpub, pages 126, 129, and 136–137:

Over the years I’ve met lots of SpaceXers, from former astronauts to engineers to range rats.

2017, Joe Pappalardo, Spaceport Earth: The Reinvention of Spaceflight, New York, N.Y., London: Overlook Duckworth, →ISBN, page 207:

Most of us SpaceXers in Hawthorne, California, had come in to watch the Dragon spacecraft launch to the International Space Station, which is pretty typical even for a weekend.

2019, Andrew Rader, Beyond the Known: How Exploration Created the Modern World and Will Take Us to the Stars, Scribner, published 2020, →ISBN, page 301:

An employee of the American spacecraft manufacturer, launcher, and satellite communications corporation SpaceX.


Muskophile

I know that Twitter remains lively for other communities and users, from niche fan groups to the Muskophiles who bought blue verified checks when the owner began selling them like stars for Sneetches.

2023 July 10, James Poniewozik, “The Twitter Watch Party Is Over”, in The New York Times:

(politics, informal) A fan or admirer of Elon Musk (born 1971), American business magnate and investor.


McMuskism

Blend of McCarthyism + Musk, coined by Carole Cadwalladr in 2024.

This is McMuskism: it’s McCarthyism on steroids, political persecution + Trump + Musk + Silicon Valley surveillance tools. It’s the dawn of a new age of political witch-hunts, where burning at the stake meets data harvesting and online mobs.

2024 November 17, Carole Cadwalladr, “How to survive the broligarchy: 20 lessons for the post-truth world”, in Katharine Viner, editor, The Guardian, London: Guardian News & Media, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 2024-11-28:

Political persecution achieved through surveillance and online harassment.


President Musk

LL-Q1860 (eng)-Naomi Persephone Amethyst (NaomiAmethyst)-President Musk.wav

From allegations that Elon Musk has too much control and influence over the second presidency of Donald Trump.

power behind the throne
power behind the throne

(US politics, neologism, derogatory) Elon Musk (born 1971), regarded as the "power behind the throne" to the 47th president of the United States.


Apartheid Clyde

From a rhyming pun combining the masculine name Clyde with a reference to Musk's birth in apartheid-era South Africa.

We are apparently stuck here together, Apartheid Clyde and I.

2022 January 18, Chanda Prescod-Weinstein, “Becoming Martian”, in The Baffler, number 61:

One account posted an AI image of Musk in a Nazi uniform, writing: “Apartheid Clyde in all his glory spreading misinformation - so here we are! Thank Grok! Can you believe Elon wears that outfit??”

2024 September 4, Rhian Lubin, “X users play Elon Musk at his own game after he posts AI image of Harris as communist dictator”, in The Independent:

In recent months, Apartheid Clyde (as he is nicknamed) has been doing his best to get Donald Trump elected by any means possible.

2024 September 7, Arwa Mahdawi, “Elon Musk is intrigued by the idea women can’t think freely because of 'low T'”, in The Guardian:


Elonia

Blend of Elon + Melania, referring to Melania Trump. By surface analysis, Elon + -ia.

You would think this wasteful outrage would have Elonia on TV and on line everywhere, putting his power and influence into full gear to stop this blatant government waste and abuse!

2025 January 29, Mike Rofone, “Why aren't more people screaming about the cost of this insanity?”, in Daily Kos:

(derogatory) Elon Musk, regarded as being exceptionally close to Donald Trump.


Swasticar

Swasticars (plural)
swasticar (alternative)
swasti-car (alternative)
Swasti-car (alternative)
swastikar (alternative)
Swastikar (alternative)
Swastikaar (alternative)
swasti-kar (alternative)
Swasti-kar (alternative)

Blend of swastika + car, referencing the controversial salutes (interpreted by some as Nazi salutes) performed by Elon Musk at the 2025 U.S. presidential inauguration.

Think about this, have you dismissed the Nazi salute by the builder of Swasticars (Elon Musk)? If not, why? Shouldn't that be important?

2025 February 19, City Pulse, volume 24, number 28, Lansing, MI, page 2:

And in London, an ad warning against buying a Tesla “Swasticar” has gone viral. Its tagline: “Goes from 0 to 1939 in 3 seconds.”

2025 March 2, Proinsias O'Mahony, “'Don’t buy a Swasticar': Elon Musk is wrecking Tesla’s brand”, in The Irish Times:

Online, the Tesla has become “the Swasticar” after Musk’s Nazi salute and his support for the hard-right German AfD.

2025 March 5, Hugo Rifkind, “Fear, not ethics, is driving the Tesla boycott”, in The Times:

(Internet slang, derogatory, neologism) The Tesla Cybertruck, or sometimes any vehicle manufactured by Tesla, Inc.


Muskolini

(slang, derogatory, US politics) Elon Musk.


DePlorean

DePloreans (plural)
Deplorean (alternative)
Deplorian (alternative)

Blend of DeLorean + deplorable (“supporter of Donald Trump or far-right politics”, noun).

deplorable<pos:noun><t:supporter of Donald Trump or far-right politics><id:US politics>

(Internet slang, derogatory) The Tesla Cybertruck.


Muskification

Trump's victory means the Muskification of the media will continue conquering new frontiers.

2024 November 10, Clayton Wiemers, “Welcome to the Muskification of Media”, in Newsweek:

2025 January 29, Clare Duffy, “The ‘Muskification’ of the federal government is in full swing”, in CNN Business:

The process of implementing business practices and leadership styles associated with Elon Musk, typically involving aggressive staff cuts, demanding performance standards, and a focus on rapid change.


Muskophilia

(informal, very rare) The admiration of Elon Musk.


Muskophobia

(informal, very rare) The fear or hatred of Elon Musk.


Muskophobe

(informal, very rare) One who fears or despises Elon Musk.