Elon Musk has responded to Taylor Swift’s endorsement of Kamala Harris in the US presidential election in a post on X.
Entrepreneur Musk, who owns X and renamed the platform from Twitter last year, has endorsed Harris’ rival in the election race, Donald Trump, and in recent years has increasingly voiced support for right-wing politicians.
After Swift announced on Instagram yesterday (September 10) that she will be voting for Harris and her running mate Tim Walz in the upcoming election, Musk replied on X, “Fine Taylor … you win … I will give you a child and guard your cats with my life.”
The reference to Swift’s cats is in response to the singer’s post, in which she included a photo of herself holding Benjamin Button, one of her three cats. She signed off her message as “Taylor Swift, Childless Cat Lady” too, clearly poking fun at recent comments made by Trump’s running mate JD Vance, in which he described prominent Democrat politicians as “childless cat ladies”.
Fine Taylor … you win … I will give you a child and guard your cats with my life
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) September 11, 2024
Musk has since doubled down on his comments, posting another message on X today in which he wrote, “Toxoplasma gondii is a danger to our democracy.” The parasite sexually reproduces exclusively in cats, and studies in the past have linked it to conditions including obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) and schizophrenia – as a result, some news outlets have called the findings “crazy cat-lady syndrome”.
Toxoplasma gondii is a danger to our democracy
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) September 11, 2024
When Vance first made his “childless cat lady” comments, they were met with an outpouring of criticism, most notably from women without children – Jennifer Aniston among them. The actor, who has spoken openly about her struggles with fertility, wrote on Instagram, “I truly cannot believe this is coming from a potential VP. All I can say is … Mr Vance, I pray that your daughter is fortunate enough to bear children of her own one day.”
It appears as though cats are becoming a recurring theme throughout this election campaign, with Trump last night repeating baseless claims about illegal immigrants from Haiti eating domestic cats and dogs in an Ohio city at the first presidential debate between himself and Harris – something he has been roundly mocked for.
And Trump has had things to say about Swift’s endorsement of his rival, too. He called into Fox & Friends this morning (per Variety) to say, “I was not a Taylor Swift fan. It was just a question of time. She couldn’t possibly endorse [current president Joe] Biden… But she’s a very liberal person. She seems to always endorse a Democrat, and she’ll probably pay a price for it in the marketplace.”
Swift endorsed Biden in the 2020 election, when he ran against Trump, and has criticised Trump in the past too. In June, Trump described her as “unusually beautiful”, and in August shared AI-generated images falsely suggesting he had support from the singer and her fans.
She addressed these in her Instagram post, too, writing, “Recently I was made aware that AI of ‘me’ falsely endorsing Donald Trump’s presidential run was posted to his site. It really conjured up my fears around AI, and the dangers of spreading misinformation. It brought me to the conclusion that I need to be very transparent about my actual plans for this election as a voter. The simplest way to combat misinformation is with the truth.”