Everything Joe Biden Has Said About Elon Musk Over The Years

Elon Musk has never shied away from taking cheap shots at Former President Joe Biden. After the tech billionaire started publicly backing Donald Trump, he utilized several posts on X, formerly known as Twitter, to put forth a bizarre, and easily debunked, theory that the Biden administration's border control policies sought to bring more illegal immigrants into the country so that the Dems could have additional voters in the future. Another one of Musk's favorite narratives to push at the time was that the president wasn't truly in charge of the country. In October 2024, he tweeted, "Biden's puppetmasters are at fault. He is just the puppet who talks the words on the teleprompter." 

Likewise, in September, Musk, notably one of the people in Trump's inner circle who once hated him, also shared a cartoon of a puppet of Biden being tossed aside and then replaced by a puppet of his Former Vice President Kamala Harris. In a somewhat ironic tweet from February 2025, the SpaceX founder poked fun at how fellow billionaire George Soros was supposedly pulling all the strings. And, in August 2024, Musk posted an outdated meme from Drake's 2015 "Hotline Bling" music video to supposedly get the younger generations to join him in supporting Trump and JD Vance's campaign over Harris and Biden's. 

Musk has also taken a page out of Trump's book and poked fun at the Democrat's age and his public fumbles on numerous occasions. And to top it all off, Musk once ripped his son, Hunter Biden, to shreds with a single tweet. Meanwhile, the former president managed to get under the Tesla owner's skin with no-so-subtle shade and tons of blatant snubs. 

During a campaign event in Pittsburgh, in October 2024, Joe Biden took aim at Elon Musk without mentioning him by name. "That wealthiest man in the world turned out to be an illegal worker here," he quipped, per PBS. "No, I'm serious. He was supposed to be in school when he came on a student visa. He wasn't in school. He was violating the law. And he's talking about all these illegals coming our way?" The president was apparently referencing a report from The Washington Post, which claimed that the South African billionaire had violated immigration laws by starting his company Zip2 in the U.S. while he was still on a student visa. Although Musk entered America in 1995 intending to study at Stanford, he apparently decided education wasn't for him and started building his company instead. 

Legal experts informed the publication that Musk's decision to drop out went against the reason that his visa was issued in the first place, and voided his legal claim for remaining in America as a result. However, the controversial businessman took to X to dispel this assertion, clarifying, "I was in fact allowed to work in the US. The Biden puppet is lying." Meanwhile, in another X post, Musk wrote that although he had entered the country on a J-1 (or an Exchange Visitor Visa), he eventually got an H1-B Visa that permitted the SpaceX founder to work in the country legally. Without name-dropping him, Musk also wrote that Biden was likely aware of his immigration status because of records, but he lied to score points in the elections.

In 2021, Joe Biden held an event at The White House for the top Electric Vehicle Manufacturers in the country to promote the initiative that 50% of new cars in the American markets should be electric vehicles by 2030. Despite owning one of the biggest EV manufacturers in America, Elon Musk was nowhere to be found at the event. While it may seem like Biden had extended the tech billionaire an invitation and he simply couldn't make it, that wasn't actually the case. Musk took to X to make it clear that he was snubbed outright. However, Biden apparently kept the Tesla owner away to keep the United Auto Workers union happy. Musk has taken shots at the UAW over the years and he notably doesn't support Tesla workers unionizing either. 

When White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki was asked whether Musk wasn't invited to the event because of his well-established non-union stance, she cryptically answered, "Well, these are the three largest employers of the United Auto Workers, so I'll let you draw your own conclusion," (via CNN). In response to a 2022 tweet calling out the Democratic president's associations with the union, Musk wrote, "Biden is a UAW [sock] puppet." Meanwhile, in January 2022, the politician threw shade at him by promoting an EV competitor that didn't fare as well as Tesla. "I meant it when I said the future was going to be made right here in America. Companies like GM and Ford are building more electric vehicles here at home than ever before," Biden wrote in a tweet.

When a reporter at The White House asked Joe Biden if he viewed Elon Musk as a threat to national security, in 2022, the president responded, "I think that Elon Musk's cooperation and/or technical relationships with other countries is worthy of being looked at," (per NBC News). He continued, "Whether or not he is doing anything inappropriate — I'm not suggesting that — I'm suggesting it's worth being looked at." After news of Biden testing positive for COVID-19 broke in July 2024, he spotted an opportunity to make a dig at Musk and eagerly took it. After catching people's attention with "I'm sick" in an X post, the crafty politician shared a follow-up tweet where he added, "of Elon Musk and his rich buddies trying to buy this election." 

Even as Biden delivered his farewell address in The Oval Office, the president made sure to warn people of the dangers of their country turning into an "oligarchy." In true form, Biden didn't mention Musk by name but rather he simply professed that people with "extreme wealth, power, and influence" had the reins of the country, and they wouldn't hesitate to create a grave power imbalance if given the chance. 

The Democratic politician also reflected on how Americans revolted against the barons about a century ago to create a more even playing field where everybody had the same rights. Biden encouraged citizens to take inspiration from them to harbor change without hatred. Without mentioning X directly, the president urged people to never let social media platforms get away with spreading misinformation. Of course, Biden could have been referencing his bizarre drama with Mark Zuckerberg with that final remark too.