Elon Musk’s mother, Maye Musk, has officially entered the media firestorm surrounding her son’s leadership at Tesla with a take so strange, so specific, and so charged, it’s making Elon’s own late-night meltdown look like mild protest. With a single tweet calling out three women by name, Maye Musk ignited a new front in the ongoing war between the Musk family and the media—this time laced with gender politics, accusations of bias, and a not-so-subtle claim that her son is the victim of a calculated campaign rooted in resentment toward powerful men.
According to Maye Musk, the controversial Wall Street Journal article that claimed Tesla’s board was actively exploring replacements for Elon Musk was not merely a business story—it was an ideologically motivated attack crafted by female journalists with a grudge. “The @WSJ dishonest article about @elonmusk and @Tesla was written by three women,” she wrote, tagging them directly, as if calling out perpetrators of a crime.
Then she added a bizarre MAGA-adjacent profile reference that further muddied her intent, hinting at ideological warfare in what should have been a straightforward corporate news report.
There was no ambiguity in her message. For Maye Musk, the issue wasn’t just the content of the article. It was the fact that women had written it. And not just any women—three, working together, targeting a rich man.
The implication? A coordinated hit, a manifestation of what she perceives as a growing cultural vendetta against men who hold power, wealth, and influence. In other words, a campaign of “hating rich men,” with Elon Musk as its latest victim.
This wasn’t a casual comment made in passing. It was a public statement made on X, the platform her son now owns, and it signaled a deliberate choice to escalate the battle. Rather than challenge the facts of the article, Maye Musk challenged its authors—on the basis of their gender.
The message was unmistakable: if three women collaborate on a negative article about Elon Musk, it must be personal. It must be political. It must be rooted in ideology, not journalism.
Such a framing isn’t just unusual; it’s explosive. It reframes the discussion from boardroom decisions and shareholder concerns into something far more charged: a cultural war between feminist media elites and male billionaires. It weaponizes identity, using it to question the validity of journalism itself. It says, in essence, that women cannot cover powerful men without bias—because they are women.
And if they do it in a group? Even more suspicious.
It’s worth noting what Maye Musk did not say. She did not refute any specific claim in the WSJ article. She did not provide evidence of bias or collusion.
She didn’t even argue the central thesis of the piece—that the Tesla board is concerned about Elon’s distractions and his dwindling focus on the company. Instead, she launched a character assault, aimed squarely at the messengers rather than the message.
But what does this accomplish? For the Musks, it appears to be a preemptive strike. By painting the article as an attack born of gender resentment, they are trying to delegitimize it entirely in the public eye. It’s not just wrong, they argue—it’s unfair. It’s targeted.
It’s part of a broader trend where society no longer respects ambitious, wealthy men but instead seeks to tear them down with manufactured outrage and clickbait morality.
And there’s a particular irony to this, given Elon Musk’s own posture in the culture wars. He has repeatedly styled himself as a free speech champion, an anti-woke crusader, a voice of reason in a world gone mad with progressive dogma.
Now his mother is following that same path, not with political rhetoric but with thinly veiled accusations of reverse sexism—suggesting that Elon is not just a businessman under scrutiny, but a man under siege.
If that’s the case, then the Musks are no longer just pushing back on bad press. They are rebranding criticism itself as a form of persecution. The media isn’t holding power to account—they’re launching witch hunts against billionaires who don’t conform to their ideals.
It’s the age-old narrative of martyrdom, wrapped in the slick packaging of tech libertarianism and cultural grievance.
To be sure, this isn’t the first time Elon Musk has framed criticism in personal terms. He often responds to negative news with fury, sarcasm, and deflection. But what makes this episode different is that it’s not coming from him—it’s coming from his mother.
Maye Musk, a respected figure in her own right, is now playing the role of defender-in-chief, throwing her credibility into the fire in order to shield her son from what she perceives as a malicious media machine.
And for those who follow the Musk family closely, this isn’t entirely surprising. Maye has long championed Elon’s genius, painting him as a misunderstood visionary beset by haters and doubters.
But this is the first time she’s gone on the offensive in such a pointed, public, and gender-specific way. In doing so, she’s not just defending Elon—she’s declaring war on his critics, and she’s drawing battle lines along identity.
It’s a dangerous game. By suggesting that female reporters are inherently biased against rich men, she risks alienating allies and trivializing legitimate concerns about her son’s leadership. She also reinforces the notion that the ultra-wealthy live in a world where scrutiny equals oppression, and journalism is merely a form of cultural bullying.
The Wall Street Journal, for its part, has stood by its reporting. They maintain that Tesla had an opportunity to respond before publication and chose not to. But in the Musks’ version of the story, facts don’t matter. Intent matters. Motive matters.
And in their eyes, the motive is clear: tear Elon down because he’s powerful, male, and unwilling to play by the media’s rules.
Maye Musk’s intervention may seem bizarre, but it’s calculated. It’s a signal to Elon’s supporters that the fight isn’t just about business decisions or boardroom politics. It’s about culture. It’s about who gets to write the narrative.
And above all, it’s about defending a myth: the myth of the embattled genius, always ahead of his time, always misunderstood, and always under attack.
Whether this strategy will work remains to be seen. But one thing is certain—by dragging gender into the fight, Maye Musk has taken an already controversial media clash and turned it into a referendum on who gets to criticize power, and why. And for Elon Musk, that might be the most useful distraction of all.