About

Elon Musk Shirtless on a Yacht in Mykonos, also known as Shirtless Elon Musk, refers to several photographs of a shirtless Elon Musk on a yacht in Mykonos, Greece, being hosed down with water by another man named Ari Emanuel. After the paparazzi images surfaced on Twitter in mid-2022, they became exploitables and inspired memes about Musk's body, which many expressed appeared oddly proportioned, overweight and pale.

Origin

On July 18th, 2022, the paparazzi agency Backgrid^[1] captured photographs of Elon Musk vacationing in Mykonos, Greece with his friends Ari Emanuel and Sarah Staudinger aboard a $20,000 per week yacht called "Zeus."^[2] The photographs showed Musk coming out of the water, being hosed down by Emanuel and drinking a cocktail aboard the boat (shown below).

The photographs were written about by publications like TMZ^[3] and Page Six^[2] before 2 p.m. EST on July 18th. Around 2:12 p.m. on July 18th, Twitter^[4] user BrandyLJensen tweeted a screenshot from TMZ's website, captioning it, "looking good, elon!" and earning roughly 18,700 likes in less than a day (shown below). This is the first known tweet using one of the photos.

Spread

The shirtless photos of Musk in Mykonos were used in more tweets continuing into the evening of July 18th, 2022. A common form of mockery was comparing shirtless Musk to shirtless vacation photos of other billionaires like Jeff Bezos, Mark Zuckerberg and Bill Gates.

For instance, on July 18th, Twitter^[5] user wallstmemes compared Musk to a shirtless Swole Jeff Bezos image, earning roughly 7,600 likes for the tweet in less than a day (shown below, left). Also on July 18th, Twitter^[6] user RMac18 referenced Mark Zuckerberg's White Sunscreen Face in a reply that received roughly 2,400 likes in a similar timeframe (shown below, right).

Continued discourse surfaced about the ethics of body shaming billionaires. For instance, Twitter^[7] user JUNIPER tweeted on July 18th, "elon musk is wearing his human skin today," earning roughly 64,100 likes in less than a day (shown below, left). However, this prompted a reply from Twitter^[8] user MutedChaotic that included a The Simpsons meme about the repercussions of body shaming public figures (shown below, right). Their reply received over 700 likes in a similar timeframe.

Meme creators also started object labeling the photo of Musk being hosed down. For instance, on July 18th, Instagram ^[9] page thisbitchknowshorses420 posted an object-labeled meme within a carousel post that received roughly 2,200 likes in one day (shown below).

Musk responded to the photographs in a reply^[10] on July 18th that stated, "Haha damn, maybe I should take off my shirt more often … free the nip!! (already back in the factory btw)," earning roughly 85,400 likes in less than a day.

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References