Elon Musk Kubrick Stare

About

Elon Musk Kubrick Stare refers to a photograph of businessman and investor Elon Musk shaking hands with Donald Trump at a Trump rally in Butler, Pennsylvania in October 2024 in which Musk is staring upwards at Trump while he shakes the former President's hand. He's shown wearing a black Make America Great Again hat. Musk's face was compared to the Kubrick Stare in memes, named after film director Stanley Kubrick, who directed actors like Jack Nicholson in The Shining to portray derangement by glaring at the camera menacingly with a forward tilt to their head. The image of Musk was perceived as unflattering and creepy by many and used in memes on Twitter / X and elsewhere to call Musk evil and villainous. The posts, mostly making fun of Musk's appearance, also simultaneously criticized his politics, beliefs and controversies. The Elon Musk Kubrick Stare photo was notably taken on the same day as the video of Elon Musk Jumping on stage at the Trump rally.

Origin

On October 5th, 2024, Donald Trump brought out Elon Musk at a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania that acted as the former President's return to the location of the first attempt on his life. ^[1] At one point during Musk's appearance, he shook Trump's hand and stared upward at him during the gesture. Getty Images photographer Jim Watson took a photo of the handshake (shown below).^[2]

Other angles of the handshake were taken by Getty Images, like one published by CBS News^[3] that same day (shown below).

On October 5th, X^[4] user @jessehawken tweeted the image of Musk shaking hands with Trump, captioning it, "I found an even worse photo than the jumping one," receiving over 127,000 likes in two days (shown below).

Spread

In the following days, the image spread in memes online. For instance, later on October 5th, 2024, X^[5] user @nise_yoshimi tweeted a cropped version of the image, only showing Musk, adding a caption that compared Musk to Chief Eunuch. The tweet amassed over 42,000 likes in two days (shown below).

Meme creators cropped the image even more in the following days. For instance, on October 6th, X^[6] user @InsaneMistress used only Musk's head, comparing his look to the Kubrick Stare. In a day, the post amassed roughly 12,000 likes (shown below).

Viral posts using the Elon Musk Kubrick Stare surfaced on other social media platforms during the same timeframe. For instance, on October 6th, Threads ^[7] user @godless_mom tweeted a screenshot of a tweet that called Musk and Trump "comic book villains," receiving over 1,400 likes in a day (shown below).

Various Examples

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External References