Harry Fletcher
Jan 02, 2024
ABC, Amazon Prime
Elon Musk has criticised Green Day after the punk group changed the lyrics of their hit song ‘American Idiot’ to hit out at Donald Trump.
The band released the song 20 years ago but altered the lyrics recently to reflect the state of politics in the US during Dick Clark’s Primetime New Year’s Rockin’ Eve with Ryan Seacrest on ABC.
Originally, the verse went: "Well, maybe I’m the f****t, America/ I’m not a part of a redneck agenda/ Now everybody, do the propaganda/And sing along to the age of paranoia."
In the new version performed on New Year’s Eve, it was changed to: "Well, maybe I’m the f****t, America/ I’m not a part of a MAGA agenda/ Now everybody, do the propaganda/ And sing along to the age of paranoia."
Getty Images
The edited version naturally attracted criticism from Trump supporters. Musk, too, clearly wasn’t a fan of the change.
The Tesla and Twitter/X CEO tweeted about the lyric change and claimed that the group had become pro-establishment.
"Green Day goes from raging against the machine to milquetoastedly raging for it," Musk wrote.
Populist Trump, of course, has pitched himself as being anti-establishment since day one of his political campaigning.
The surprising thing is that Musk and Trump previously haven’t seen eye to eye on a lot of things.
Last year, Trump hit out at Musk in a series of posts on his social media network, Truth Social, following a tweet from the Tesla titan saying it was time for Trump to "sail into the sunset."
Trump was clearly hurt by the comment and drafted a three-part post aimed at Musk's "electric cars that don't drive long enough driverless cars that crash, or rocketships to nowhere."
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