After apologizing to Trump, the Tesla CEO returns to his favorite battleground: attacking liberals and “wokeism, » as he tries to repair his image among conservative hardliners.
Elon Musk is in comeback mode. And he’s doing it the only way he knows how: by igniting culture war flames and trolling progressives.
The world’s richest man has just endured one of the most humiliating stretches of his public life. What started as a bombastic fallout with Donald Trump, whom Musk helped return to the White House, ended with a rare and uncharacteristic public apology.
“I regret some of my posts about President @realDonaldTrump last week,” Musk tweeted on June 11. “They went too far.”
I regret some of my posts about President @realDonaldTrump last week. They went too far.
Elon Musk (@elonmusk) June 11, 2025
This moment of contrition signaled just how much damage the feud had done, not only to Musk’s reputation with Make America Great Again conservatives, but also to his companies. Tesla, the electric vehicle maker he leads as CEO, is still reeling from a sharp sales drop. First-quarter deliveries fell 13%, and net income plunged 71% year-over-year. The company’s stock has dropped more than 20% since January.
Behind the scenes, Musk has attempted to re-focus on business. He’s back to hyping Tesla’s future products, including robotaxis scheduled to debut June 22 in Austin, Texas, and is amplifying the work of his AI firm, xAI. But politics remains his drug of choice.
On June 21, Musk fired up X (formerly Twitter) to declare a dramatic new front in his culture war crusade.
“‘Baby, what happened to Woke?’” he posted, mimicking a conversation. Then answered himself: “Dead, my darling, Woke is dead.”
“Baby, what happened to Woke?”
Dead, my darling, Woke is dead.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) June 21, 2025
The post racked up over 35 million views.
