While there are plenty of people supporting Trump’s right-hand man and his excessive attempts at “efficiency” in the US, plenty more sense that he’s nothing more than a troublemaker. A billboard in Alabama reflects the sentiment of these sensible Americans by featuring Elon Musk‘s face with the following headline: “This is the Immigrant Who Took Your Job.”
“This gives me hope,” reads the top comment on the Reddit post featuring the Alabama billboard, with nearly two thousand upvoting in agreement. “There’s more of us here than you would think. We’re fighting. Gerrymandered to hell down here though,” remarks the top reply, with others from Florida, Utah, and other states declaring their support. One user jokingly calls Musk “The real African-American welfare queen.” “Voted for Trump/Musk? Lost your job? I can’t feel bad for you,” sarcastically remarks another.
For those living under a rock, South African billionaire and Tesla CEO Elon Musk has been hard at work making the lives of thousands of Americans very hard. Coordinating mass layoffs under Trump’s authority through his DOGE (Department of Government Efficiency), the executive chairman of X/Twitter has terminated the jobs of almost 300,000 workers. Chief Market Strategist Callie Cox says this staggering number is easily the “largest job cuts in American history.” It goes without saying that many view Musk as an enemy of the people. However, virtually hundreds of thousands of Americans were encouraged to see the DOGE leader’s ironic billboard in Alabama.
“I didn’t vote for that Nazi from South Africa,” proclaims another Reddit user reacting to the post. As a reminder, Elon Musk did a Nazi salute during a rally celebrating Trump’s inauguration. Whether it was supposed to be satire, it didn’t sit well with anyone, yet the arrogant billionaire was unapologetic and even publicly doubled down on his gesture. While he’s deservedly in the crosshairs for criticism, he is using Trump as a shield for himself and his company, a perfect example being the recent Tesla promotion at the White House.
“They forgot the Illegal part but still a step in the right direction,” mentions a Reddit user. While Musk might not be technically illegal now in the eyes of the current American government, another points out that “he might have been illegally working while on a student visa in the 90s,” per an article by CNN. In other words, Redditors surmise that “he gained citizenship through fraud” and “violated his visa and thus was here illegally.” Therefore, the Alabama billboard could instead say: “This is the ‘illegal’ immigrant who took your job.”
Whatever the case, Musk is currently in the protection of Trump’s palm, not to mention he can and has gotten away with plenty of corruption as an influential billionaire. That all said, it’s a challenge to ‘punch up’ and fight back against the irrationality of the current state of the American government. However, hope is on the horizon as long as people don’t give up hope and stand for what is just.
