Elon Musk Immediately Becomes Laughing Stock of the Web After Celebrating Trump’s Elimination of Department of Education with Meme Featuring Misspelling
One day after President Donald Trump signed an executive order officially dismantling the U.S. Department of Education, Elon Musk, the South African-born billionaire who helped bring it down celebrated, as wealthy industrialists do, with an ironic meme.
The irony was unintended. The graphic features Trump’s face edited onto someone flashing a peace sign next to a headstone representing the Department of Education, with department spelled “Departmen.”
“It’s ‘Department’ not ‘Departmen,’” one commenter rebuked. “You constantly prove your absolute idiocy.”
Others took a more humorous approach.
“Why department and not departwomen,” asked one X user.
“$200 billion and you can’t afford a T? “wrote another.
Another commenter took a dig at Musk’s tumbling Tesla stock, posting, “Where’s the 2nd T, as in Tesla? Did it fall off?”
Trump campaigned on a promise to shut down the federal department, saying the agency’s power should be returned to states and individual school districts. The federal education department was created in 1979 by Congress and endorsed by then-President Jimmy Carter. Republican presidents since then have vowed to abolish it, but none delivered, as Musk noted in a post last month on his social media platform, X.
“Not this time. President @realDonaldTrump will succeed,” he wrote.
But did he? One user on X pointed out that Trump cannot completely eliminate the department without an act of Congress.
“Elon Musk can’t spell. He also doesn’t know that Congress has to get rid of the ‘Departmen’ of Education and that Donald’s little executive order is meaningless. Is anyone surprised?” the post read.
Republicans said they will introduce legislation to abolish the DOE, while Democrats have vowed to oppose any such efforts.
Trump has criticized the Education Department as wasteful and overly woke.
His order says the education secretary will, “to the maximum extent appropriate and permitted by law, take all necessary steps to facilitate the closure of the Department of Education and return authority over education to the States and local communities.”
Details on how that transition will be carried out, and what, if any, functions will remain under the auspices of a neutered federal agency are unclear.
