As is typical with any Musk Twitter event, it didn’t take long for the internet’s creative forces to get to work. Memes ranging from Musk holding a Pride flag in his Mars Rover to animated sequences of rainbow rockets launching into orbit quickly flooded timelines. The “Ban the Flag” movement, as it became known, even gained traction in meme-ified news segments, complete with commentators discussing the logistics of sending all Pride flags to the Moon.
Late-night hosts couldn’t resist jumping into the fray either. Stephen Colbert quipped, “Elon Musk wants to ban Pride flags from classrooms, which makes sense. He’s already banned subtlety from Twitter.”
SNL produced an entire sketch parodying Musk’s decision-making process in Tesla HQ, where, instead of focusing on electric cars or space exploration, the billionaire held an emergency boardroom meeting to discuss his next target in the “culture wars.” Spoiler: It wasn’t the oil industry.
For his part, Musk seemed unbothered by the wave of criticism and ridicule that followed his tweet. In fact, true to form, he seemed to be enjoying it. When asked in a subsequent interview whether he had any regrets about making such a divisive statement, Musk chuckled. “Look, we have bigger things to worry about than flags. How about we focus on getting to Mars, curing diseases, and making classrooms about learning math and science again?”
