Elon Musk mocks Green Day for changing lyrics to ‘American Idiot’ during New Year’s Eve performance

4 January, 2024

Green Day and Elon Musk. Credit: Gilbert Flores and John Moore via GETTY

Elon Musk has mocked pop-punk icons Green Day for changing their lyrics to ‘American Idiot’ during their New Year’s Eve performance.

To ring in 2024, the band played a set as part of Dick Clark’s New Year’s Rockin’ Eve – hosted by Ryan Seacrest.

The gig then hit headlines when the band’s lead singer, Billie Joe Armstrong, altered the ‘American Idiot’ lyric “I’m not a part of a redneck agenda” to hit out at Donald Trump, singing: “I’m not a part of the MAGA agenda”.

The song was written about the Iraq War and was originally a direct criticism of former President George Bush.

Musk – the founder of Tesla motors and tech billionaire – criticised the gesture by responding to an article about the band’s lyric-swap which was posted by Not the Bee on X/Twitter.

He commented on the post via his official X/Twitter account and wrote: “Green Day goes from raging against the machine to milquetoastedly raging for it,” followed by a pair of crying with laughter emojis.

X/Twitter users were quick to point out that “milquetoastedly” is not a word and that  “milquetoast” is.

One user shared the word’s definition and tweeted: “Milquetoast, noun. milque·​toast ˈmilk-ˌtōst Synonyms of milquetoast: a timid, meek, or unassertive person. You’ll learn stuff here on X,” while another wrote: “‘Milquetoastedly’ is not a word in any way shape or form. Milquetoast is the adjective. If you’re going to form the adverbial form it would be ‘milquetoastly’.”

This isn’t the first time that Green Day have taken jabs at Trump. At the American Music Awards (AMA) in 2016, the legendary punk trio led a chant of “No Trump, no KKK, no fascist USA” in protest against the then-President electoral candidate.

In August last year, the band announced a limited-time sale of a t-shirt featuring Donald Trump‘s mugshot for charity. The t-shirt, titled Ultimate Nimrod, used Trump’s viral mugshot to recreate their iconic ‘Nimrod’ cover, with the album’s title covering Trump’s face.

Green Day are next set to release their forthcoming album ‘Saviors’, via Warner/Reprise on January 19. The album is led by the singles ‘The American Dream Is Killing Me’, ‘Look Ma, No Brains!’ and ‘Dilemma’.

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