Elon Musk dances to the beat of his own drummer. The Twitter/Tesla boss hardly ever does what you expect and almost always goes for the boldest, most outrageous move, whether in technology or when dipping his toe into the music biz. So far he’s kept his billions firmly focused on land (Tesla, Boring Co.), air (SpaceX, Starlink), inner space (Neuralink) and social media (Twitter).
But the once richest man in the world has long had a fascination with music, from his energetically goofy dances at company events to a ill-considered EDM track, a vigorous beef with rapper Azealia Banks, a brief relationship with musician Grimes (with whom he has two children) and his most recent hit: a $250 million lawsuit launched this week by a coalition of music publishers who sued Twitter for what they alleged is “massive copyright infringement” involving the catalogs of 17 music publishers. Musk’s X Corp, Twitter’s owner, is the only defendant in the case.
The legal action on behalf of the rights holders for artists including Drake, Adele, Taylor Swift, Michael Jackson and Rage Against the Machine, among hundreds of others, claims that, “Twitter stands alone as the largest social media platform that has completely refused to license the millions of songs on its service,” according to a statement from David Israelite, chief executive of the National Music Publishers’ Assn. “Twitter knows full well that music is leaked, launched, and streamed by billions of people every day on its platform. No longer can it hide behind the [Digital Millennium Copyright Act] and refuse to pay songwriters and music publishers.”
Check out a list of Musk’s musical forays below.
Musk’s blessedly brief and seemingly final (for now) foray into actually making music came in January 2020 when he dropped the super basic EDM track “Don’t Doubt ur Vibe,” on which the uber tech bro — who also produced — whispers the phrase “don’t doubt your vibe because it’s you” endlessly.
Musk’s first musical adventure was a 2019 hip-hop track that managed to combine a years-old meme, a Twitter joke (before he owned the company) and a tribute to the famous gorilla killed at the Cincinnati zoo by keepers in 2016. “This might be my finest work,” Musk said at the time of the track credited to his fictional Emo G Records label. “RIP Harambe/ Sipping on some Bombay/ We on our way to heaven/ Amen, Amen,” an AutoTuned voice sings on the song.
While, thankfully, Musk and EDM artist Grimes did not make any music together during their three-year, on-and-off relationship, the unlikely pairing — they share two young children — briefly thrust Musk into the music news space via endless headlines about their unpredictable relationship.
While David Bowie often dreamed about intergalactic travel in his songs, he never made it to space… until Musk blasted his own red Tesla Roadster into the stars in 2018 during the first-ever Falcon Heavy Rocket launch. The soundtrack was, of course, Bowie’s iconic 1969 ode to the great beyond, “Space Oddity.”
If you can’t sing, then you might as well move it, move it. The father of six has proved multiple times that the’s the king of dad dancing. His most legendary dance floor moment came in 2020 during a Tesla event in Shanghai when Musk stripped his coat off and danced like he was trying to dodge invisible darts. He was at it again in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico in March of this year when he busted out what the internet charitably dubbed “white boy dance moves.”
Musk is no stranger to stirring the pot, but the entrepreneur got more than he bargained for when he stuck his hand in Azealia Banks’ hive. The MC who is as well known for beef as bars, wrote an apology to Musk in 2018 after spending several days thrashing Elon for failing to help her get a Grimes feature.
Musk’s Twitter is facing a $250 million lawsuit from a group of music publishers who claim the site “breeds massive copyright infringement that harms music creators.” The legal action involves the catalogs of 17 music publishers, who allege that for years Twitter has let users share copyrighted songs without the proper licenses. Music’s X Corp, Twitter’s owner, is the only defendant in the case.