Strange Things About Elon Musk That Everyone Ignores

Business mogul Elon Musk has reached the heights of wealth and power to the point of becoming a key player in the second Trump administration. While many consider him a genius, others consider him quite weird, to say the least. At the start of 2025, several popular gamers and streamers suggested that Musk might not be the only person playing the fantasy game "Path of Exile." His account had reached level 97, but many believed other people might be playing for him, given his unfamiliarity with basic game mechanics. Eventually, Musk admitted to cheating in both "Path of Exile" and "Diablo 4" after claiming to be one of the top 20 players in the world in the latter.

This is just a tiny glimpse into the co-chair of the Department of Government Efficiency, who apparently thinks so highly of himself that he donated his sperm to a Neuralink executive Shivon Zilis. He did not have a romantic relationship with the Yale-educated artificial intelligence specialist whom he did not have a romantic relationship with, but he wanted two extremely intelligent people to create intelligent kids (he ultimately fathered twins with her). "He really wants smart people to have kids, so he encouraged me to," Zilis said in the book "Elon Musk" by journalist Walter Isaacson.

As soon as Elon Musk bought Twitter, he renamed it to "X", and it seems like his fascination with the letter has been going on for decades. His aerospace company is called SpaceX, and one of his Tesla models is also called "X". Even more, he co-founded X.com in 1999, a website of online banking services that eventually merged with PayPal, and he tried to rename the company "X" when he was CEO. In fact, he had been so insistent with the PayPal rebranding that this was reportedly among the reasons why the board ousted him from his CEO position. The attack apparently inspired him to pursue a similar tactic years later at Tesla: He fired Tesla's co-founder and CEO, Martin Eberhard, and to become captain of the ship. Unlike Eberhard and co-founder Marc Tarpenning, Musk was not a founder of Tesla, though. The two engineers had been developing the electric vehicle for years before reaching out to Musk for funding, unaware that he would soon do a full take-over. The South African billionaire reacquired the domain in 2017, saying on (wait for it) X that it has "sentimental value."

The letter X is not just seen in his companies now — it has even entered his family life. He named his son with singer Grimes X Æ A-Xii, but he just calls him "X." Grimes explained on Musk's social media platform that the reason behind his name has to do with X being an unknown variable, especially in algebra: One has to solve an equation to find the value of "X."

Elon Musk has constantly shared his fondness for Diet Coke. In January 2025, he wrote on X that he had a "drinking problem", attaching a photo of his bedside table cluttered with 6 seemingly empty cans of the soda. He also called its inventor a genius that same month when he shared an image of former U.S. President Donald Trump receiving a commemorative Diet Coke bottle from Coca-Cola CEO James Quincey (something the brand has done for several presidential inaugurations). This was no surprise to his followers, as he had been tweeting about his love for the soda for years. In 2022, he even said that he wanted to buy Coca-Cola to put cocaine back in it. The tweet was so popular that it had gained 4.3 million likes as of January 2025.

Undoubtedly, Coke is not the healthiest beverage in the world, something he himself recognizes. "Diet Coke & Coke Zero are awesome," Musk tweeted in 2023. "I don't care if drinking gallons of it shaves a bit of life off. Worth it." His nutrition is not a priority, it seems. As he said in "The Joe Rogan Experience" in 2020, "I'd rather eat tasty food and live a shorter life." It's not surprising, then, that he said he used to skip breakfast or just eat a Mars bar or donut. After Dr. Peter H. Diamandis told Musk sugar is poison on X, the billionaire wrote back that he ate "a donut every morning, and is "still alive." And in what appeared to be a joke, he tweeted that he "only (has) 0.4 donuts at a time, because my brain neural network quantizes it down to 0 donuts."

In 2023, Elon Musk challenged Mark Zuckerberg, the CEO of Meta (formerly Facebook), to a cage fight. It started when a user commented on Zuckerberg's development of Thread, an X rival, saying, "I heard he does the ju jitsu now." Musk responded with: "I'm up for a cage match if he is lol." Mark Zuckerberg replied on Instagram: "Send me location." However, Musk only responded by making a quip about beating him and then ghosted.

Musk has also been on the receiving end of fight proposals. Nicolas Maduro, the left-wing president of Venezuela, was not happy about Musk's claims that his election victory was fraudulent. "I'm not afraid of you, Elon Musk," Maduro said on national television (via Fortune). "Let's fight, wherever you want." Musk, in turn, tweeted, "I accept," but that's where their story ended. Another politician who Musk was willing to fight is Russian President Vladimir Putin. "I hereby challenge Vladmir Putin to single combat," Musk wrote on X. Netizens were eager to see this fight actually happen, as Putin had an (honorary) black belt in Taekwondo, the highest level in the martial art, but it never did either.

As if this wasn't enough, he also challenged Hollywood actor Johnny Depp to a fight. The Tesla CEO used to date Amber Heard, with whom Depp had a high-profile divorce. In one of the many text exchanges between the couple that were shown in court, Depp threatened to cut off Musk's lower appendage. The New York Times asked Musk his opinion about this text in 2020, to which he replied, "If Johnny wants a cage fight, just let me know." However, the actor never responded, and nothing ever happened.

Most people with an X account already know Elon Musk's tweets have been unhinged for years, from agreeing with blatant antisemitic claims to bragging that he's never been to therapy. It is uncommon for famous billionaires to be so active on social media and to constantly engage with strangers. According to Insider, he tweeted an average of once per hour at the end of 2022 since buying the social media platform. But the tweets counted for this average are the ones shared on his official X account, @elonmusk, and he apparently has at least one burner account. 

Musk reportedly revealed the account, @ermnmusk, by accident in a clip where he tried to show creators how to enable subscriptions on his site, and if Vice is right in its investigation, the billionaire's digital footprint is even weirder than we thought. In it, we can find tweets where he pretends to be his own child, X Æ A-Xii, writing that he wished he was old enough to go to nightclubs and praising his own company, Tesla.

In late 2024, hints emerged that an account that went by the name of Adrian Dittman was run by Musk as well. As reported by The Times of India, even Musk's own daughter, Vivian, wrote on Threads that she believes this is her father. Dittman has participated in multiple calls on X, and she, along with many people around the world, noticed the person's voice sounds just like Musk's to the point of giving her "chills". This account also praises the billionaire in their tweets. A journalist, however, claimed this was a different person, but Musk tweeted that he was, in fact, Adrian Dittmann, and the reporter's X account was frozen.

As a husband, Elon Musk does not have the best track either. He's been involved in a bitter custody battle with Grimes and is accused of illegally withholding their children from her (via Los Angeles Times). In July 2024, Grimes' mother, Sandy Garossino, tweeted to Musk that she was "alarmed" that he was withholding their children's passports — X Æ A-Xii, 4, Exa Dark Sideræl, 2½, and Techno "Tau" Mechanicus — when their mother's side of the family wanted them to see their dying great-grandmother in Canada (via People). "This is so painful for my mother, and concerning for the kids," Garossino wrote. She said it was troubling to see Musk with X Æ A-Xii at the Paris Olympics when they were supposed to be in Canada, and to top it off, she and Grimes apparently knew nothing about the whereabouts of the singer's other two kids with the billionaire. "Where are the other children, and with whom?" Garossino asked. "They are scheduled to be with their mother."

This is not the first time an ex-wife of Musk has claimed to have experienced problematic behaviors from him. His first wife, Canadian writer Justine Wilson, wrote an essay about their marriage in Marie Claire, claiming the then-PayPal CEO told her in their wedding dance that he was "the alpha" in their relationship. Throughout their marriage, he apparently truly believed this. Wilson claimed Musk treated her more like an employee than an equal partner, to the point of telling her, "If you were my employee, I would fire you," during disagreements.