Joyce Carol Oates is 87 years old and an American giant of literature, the arts and humanities. She’s won the National Book Award, the O. Henry Award and many more awards and accolades. Oates is also, somewhat hilariously, very online. Her favorite social media outlet seems to be Twitter, and she tweets consistently and she inevitably makes news for her sharp, incisive musings. Well, over the weekend, she saw some douchebro simping over Elon Musk, so Oates decided to share her general thoughts on Musk and how his life actually seems quite miserable. She wrote:
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.”
This is so insightful and very true. It reminds me of JK Rowling as well – all of that money, just to wind up a bitter and joyless, endlessly sh-tposting bigotry and hate. Musk is much worse, obviously, and JCO ended up stinging Musk so badly that he furiously started posting about movies he saw years ago and enjoyed! I’m being completely serious. He also replied to someone and wrote: “Oates is a liar and delights in being mean. Not a good human.” Delights in being mean? You mean like those DOGE psychos who slashed USAID and killed thousands of men, women and children across the world? JCO also posted this about Musk:
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.
She is delivering body blow after body blow. She’s now been dissecting him for three straight days and Musk is FURIOUS. He can’t figure out a way to combat an 87-year-old writer who saw into his soul and finds him deeply unimpressive.
“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. https://t.co/FfxCBWe155
— Joyce Carol Oates (@JoyceCarolOates) November 11, 2025
She is impressive! A normal parent would be very proud. https://t.co/8N1C3SGcQK
— Joyce Carol Oates (@JoyceCarolOates) November 10, 2025
Acclaimed author Joyce Carol-Oates, 87, really got to Elon by pointing out he is a shell of a human with little of interest to say, has no original ideas and he clearly doesn’t read. I have read many of Joyce Carol-Oates books but to me rattling Space Karen ranks up there with… pic.twitter.com/OMCcxfgvbG
— TheRealThelmaJohnson (@TheRealThelmaJ1) November 10, 2025
Photos courtesy of Backgrid, Cover Images.
