Elon Musk Is Using Monty Python References to Smooth Over His Disastrous Year
When he’s not busy backing out of TV interviews, blowing up rockets or laying the groundwork for an Ebola pandemic, Elon Musk is still CEO of a major car company. But things haven’t been going so great at Tesla, and not just because owning a Cybertruck is apparently the automotive equivalent of wearing a “Kick Me” sign.
In 2025, Tesla’s share price has plummeted, reportedly costing Musk $102 billion. It’s been said that this is due to his work with the Trump administration, but even without Trump, presumably going full “midlife crisis Leatherface” at public events isn’t the best move for any CEO.
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During a recent interview with Fox Business, Musk was asked about some of these problems, as well as the protests targeting Tesla dealerships and charging stations, and the recent X/Twitter outage. Musk responded to the pile-up of terrible news by invoking Monty Python’s Eric Idle, telling host Larry Kudlow, “Always look on the bright side of life.”
This probably won’t reassure Tesla shareholders all that much, considering that the quote comes from a musical number at the end of Monty Python’s Life of Brian, and it’s sung by a number of crucifixion victims who, despite the cheery tune, are hopelessly doomed.
Weirdly, this isn’t the first time that Musk has invoked Monty Python in order to explain some of his baffling business decisions. In 2022, when Twitter users complained about the new owner’s plan to charge a subscription fee of $8 a month to verified accounts, he joked that he “stole” the idea to charge money for insults and arguments from Monty Python’s “Argument Clinic” sketch.
The joke didn’t go over well with Idle, who countered: “You’re allowed to steal but you wish to charge us to verify who we are? Good luck with that then.”
Musk is reportedly a huge Python fan, so much so that he used to stop Tesla meetings just to watch clips from Monty Python’s Flying Circus, and he even included Monty Python “Easter eggs” in certain Tesla models.
But now it seems as though the surviving Pythons really seem to hate one of their biggest, and richest, fans. In addition to Idle’s Twitter complaints, John Cleese has (repeatedly) quit Twitter, seemingly because of its owner “you know who.” (Although he just keeps coming back for some reason.)
You’d imagine that quoting one of their most popular songs during a discussion of his various catastrophes won’t do anything to win the Pythons over to Musk’s side.
