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Elon Musk hit back at The Daily Show host Jon Stewart after he criticized his social media platform X (formerly Twitter), labelling the comic “an extremely skilled propagandist.”
Speaking on the latest episode of his podcast The Weekly Show, Stewart said that the world’s richest man “has pushed this idea that undocumented, non-citizen voting is rampant, it is sowing the seeds of our destruction, and we cannot do it.
“The irony of it all is [because of] this guy’s platform, this guy’s algorithm, which he is in charge of... he is a far more relevant actor in the warping of our democracy, through his money and his algorithm, than any measure of undocumented, non-citizen voting will ever be.”
As his guests, Platformer editor Casey Newton and Georgetown University research professor Renee DiResta, nodded in agreement, Stewart continued: “What his argument – and I think his people’s argument – would be, is: Now that we’re getting uncensored material, now that the First Amendment has primacy, people move to the right because they learn the truth.
“But the truth is that the algorithm incentivizes the misinformation from the right, and he designs it.”
Musk reacted to a clip of the exchange on X by saying: “Jon Stewart is an extremely skilled propagandist disguised as a truth-teller.”
The host responded, “Elon Musk is an extremely skilled propagandist,” pointedly leaving out the latter qualifier.
“Not as good as you! Stop being so humble,” the tech boss answered, prompting Stewart to repeat an invitation he extended last year to appear on his show.
Musk said in February 2025, while he was leading President Donald Trump’s DOGE operation to cut federal expenditure, that he would guest on the long-running Comedy Central satire “if the show airs unedited.”
“We’d be delighted!” the show replied on X but the billionaire has yet to make good on the promise and Stewart later complained that Musk had “ghosted him.”
The comic said his efforts to make the interview happen were ignored by the SpaceX and Tesla boss, with messages sent to him displaying as read without a reply following.
“Judging from his most recent revelations of his baby mamas, I think everyone has been left on read at some point by that gentleman,” Stewart joked. “I got left on read man.”
He continued: “I did DM him. I texted him and just said like, ‘Hey man, so is there somebody I should, you know, have our guys reach out to, to make this happen?’ And I got ghosted.
“They keep talking about cancel culture. The real cancel culture in this country is anybody who might speak out against Donald Trump, who might be on the right, is immediately exiled.”
In another exchange about the mooted appearance, Stewart rubbished Musk’s suggestion that he could not be “trusted” to conduct a fair interview: “The guy who custom-made his own Dark MAGA hat – that he wears to opine in the Oval Office with the president, who he spent $270 million to elect – thinks I’m just too partisan.”
Musk also went after Stewart over an episode in which the host complained about the cost of prescription drugs and, mid-rant, accidentally cut his hand smashing a “World’s Most Dad” coffee mug on his desk before joking with the studio audience: “I’ll be going to the hospital soon.”
“I will send him some DOGE merch to comfort him while he recovers from this injury,” Musk tweeted in response to Stewart’s misfortune.
The billionaire also replied with a dart-hitting-a-bullseye emoji in response to a commenter who said of the comedian: “There is a metaphor here. Democrats are so lost in anti-Elon anger that they end up hurting themselves.”