Tyler, the Creator Shares His New Thoughts on Elon Musk During ACL Fest Performance

Tyler, the Creator proved there’s nothing wrong with treating one’s art as a living, breathing, mutable thing that never needs to be set in stone or encased forever in wax, especially as the artist grows, changes, and improves as a human. He did this by… cussing out Elon Musk while performing “911” at the Austin City Limits Music Festival over the weekend.

First appearing on Tyler’s celebrated 2017 album, Flower Boy, “911/Mr. Lonely” arrived at a moment when Musk was, for the most part, known mostly as the electric car guy, hence the original lyric: “Sucks you can’t gas me up, shout out to Elon.” Tyler had previously talked up Tesla during a 2015 interview on Hot 97, and he’d tweeted “shout out Elon Musk” in 2016 earning a “Thanks Tyler” from Musk in return.

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To say the least, a lot has obviously happened since then. The buying and destroying of Twitter; the turn to dedicated culture warrior and “free speech” advocate with a penchant for spreading misinformation; the creepy tweets at Taylor Swift and lame jumping at Donald Trump rallies; etc., etc., etc. All of which is to say, there was plenty of reason for Tyler, the Creator to switch up the “911” lyric to, “Sucks you can’t gas me up, man fuck Elon!” 

Tyler even allowed himself a self-aware laugh after delivering the punch line. And while ACL Fest is the only show Tyler has played this year outside Coachella, he couldn’t have picked a more ideal place to debut the line tweak since Austin is, of course, where Tesla is headquartered.