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Elon Musk’s tone was consistent with how his once-BFF US President Donald Trump reacted to the media network ABC’s move to suspend Jimmy Kimmel’s show for now
Tech billionaire Elon Musk chose to jump into the controversy around late-night TV host Jimmy Kimmel’s remarks over the Charlie Kirk killing. (Image: AP/File)
With a succinct reaction in line with his tone since slain far-right activist Charlie Kirk’s assassination, tech billionaire Elon Musk on Thursday chose to jump into the controversy around late-night TV host Jimmy Kimmel’s remarks over the killing.
“Jimmy Kimmel is disgusting,” wrote Musk, reacting to an X post by right-wing media personality Alex Christy, who shared the clip in which Kimmel essentially said Trump’s support base tried to exploit Kirk’s assassination politically. Kimmel also commented on a clip in which Trump, responding to a question about grieving Kirk’s death, started talking about constructing a ballroom at the White House.
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Musk’s tone was also consistent with how his once-BFF Trump reacted to the media network ABC’s move to suspend Kimmel’s show for now. Trump congratulated ABC for “finally having the courage to do what had to be done”, and went on to call two other late-night hosts, Jimmy Fallon and Seth Meyers, “total losers”.
Musk has been menacing in his tone on X, which he owns, in several posts since Kirk’s murder in Utah. He told his followers five times since Kirk’s death that they need to “fight or die”, and described the assassination as part of a deepening cultural and political conflict. He went on to add in a livestreamed speech on Saturday at a far-right rally in London that “violence is coming”.
This is part of increasingly aggressive rhetoric from the conservative media and political landscape, even though investigators have not yet found any certain political motives behind 22-year-old Tyler Robinson’s shooting of Kirk.
Jimmy Kimmel referred to this situation in one of his comments.
Alex Christy, whose X post Musk replied to, quoted some parts: “Jimmy Kimmel claims ‘We hit some new lows over the weekend with the MAGA gang desperately trying to characterize this kid who murdered Charlie Kirk as anything other than one of them and doing everything they can to score political points from it’, and ‘This is not how an adult grieves the murder of somebody he [Trump] called a friend. This is how a 4-year-old mourns a gold fish, okay.’”
MAGA, short for ‘Make America Great Again’ after Trump’s slogan, is now also shorthand for Trump’s conservative voter base.
These comments were apparently a reason why ABC suspended the show ‘Jimmy Kimmel Live!’ indefinitely beginning Wednesday. The move came after some affiliated stations said they would not air his latest episodes that featured the comments about Kirk’s killing.
Kimmel, a veteran comic, made several comments about the reaction to Kirk’s assassination on Monday and Tuesday nights.
ABC has aired Kimmel’s late-night show since 2003, but acted after Nexstar Communications Group, which runs 23 channels that use its content, said it would pull the show. Nexstar boss Andrew Alford termed Kimmel’s remarks “offensive and insensitive at a critical time in our national political discourse”.
Kimmel, who has a contract till May of next year, made no immediate comment.
Trump and his support base — Charlie Kirk, 31, was also a major ally — have a running feud with late-night shows that they disparage as woke and leftist.
Trump seemed to have predicted what would happen to Kimmel after CBS cancelled ‘The Late Show with Stephen Colbert’ in July. Trump wrote on his social media platform Truth Social: “I absolutely love that Colbert got fired. His talent was even less than his ratings. I hear Jimmy Kimmel is next. Has even less talent than Colbert!”
Like Colbert, Kimmel has been consistently critical of Trump and many of his policies.
On Kirk’s assassination, Kimmel also said that FBI chief Kash Patel has handled the investigation “like a kid who didn’t read the book”.
He returned to the topic on Tuesday night, mocking Vice President JD Vance’s performance as guest host for what used to be Kirk’s podcast. Kimmel said Trump was “fanning the flames” by attacking people on the left over Kirk’s killing.
(With agency inputs)
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The News Desk is a team of passionate editors and writers who break and analyse the most important events unfolding in India and abroad. From live updates to exclusive reports to in-depth explainers, the Desk d…Read More
The News Desk is a team of passionate editors and writers who break and analyse the most important events unfolding in India and abroad. From live updates to exclusive reports to in-depth explainers, the Desk d… Read More
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September 19, 2025, 00:07 IST
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