Award-winning musician Grimes publicly asked her partner Elon Musk to switch off his phone last night after he posted a tweet that could easily be construed as transphobic.
Musk, a highly successful tech entrepreneur who serves as CEO of several companies including Tesla, Inc., first tweeted a red rose emoji followed by the words "Twitter sucks".
🌹 Twitter sucks
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 24, 2020
According to Mashable, using the red rose emoji on Twitter often denotes a reference to the left-wing political party Democratic Socialists of America (DSA).
Musk, 49, then tweeted "pronouns suck", which many followers interpreted as a transphobic rejection of the gender-neutral pronouns used by many gender nonconforming and trans people.
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Others pointed out that if Musk's tweet was supposed to be transphobic, it actually failed to make sense – as people of all gender identities use pronouns, whether that's "he"/"him", "she"/"her" or "they"/"them".
Pronouns suck
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 25, 2020
This just in Elon Musk is transphobic and has no concept of what pronouns are, thus revealing he is very stupid and does not understand that every English speaking person uses pronouns in almost every sentence! https://t.co/FX4T6shuGR
— 𓂀EvⒶn𓂀 (@MeatPulp_) July 25, 2020
Oh wow Elon Musk is transphobic I'm just so surprised by this completely unpredictable development who ever could have thought https://t.co/JyMugivVSU
— Gillian Branstetter (@GBBranstetter) July 25, 2020
In a tweet that's since been deleted – but only after being widely screen grabbed – Grimes replied to her partner: "I love you but please turn off ur phone or give me a dall [sic]. I cannot support this hate. Please stop this. I know this is not your heart."
Grimes, whose real name is Claire Boucher, is understood to have been dating Musk since 2018, when the pair became friendly through Twitter. Grimes announced in February that the couple were expecting their first child and explained why she would not be sharing the baby's gender, saying: "I feel like their privacy should be protected".
However, Musk confirmed in May that they had welcomed a baby boy, and then Grimes shared his very unusual name.