Billionaire otaku Elon Musk professes his love for ‘Goat-ed’ Makoto Shinkai anime masterpiece: New ‘MAGA’ era
Despite being occupied on the political front with Donald Trump, Elon Musk hasn't shied away from revealing his innate love for anime on social media.
Elon Musk may be going viral for all sorts of reasons since his political alignment with US President-elect Donald Trump. Still, on Thursday (IST), the billionaire tech giant became a hot topic for his love for anime.
Three years ago, he caused quite a stir, mentioning the viral video game Genshin Impact on his X, formerly Twitter, account. His one-liner tweet drew massive attention, with people dropping in comments asking for his anime recommendations. The Tesla boss dropped his solid list of must-watch anime series and movies: Death Note, Evangelion, Ghost in the Shell, Spirited Away, Princess Mononoke, Full Metal Alchemist and Your Name. The last fantasy romance masterpiece Makoto Shinkai directorial (Kim no Na Wa) again expanded Musk’s digital footprint as a fellow Otaku on November 14.
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The Trump acolyte, who was recently tapped to lead the newly created Department of Government Efficiency alongside Indian-origin former presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy, has been busy tweeting about his newfound rise on the political front. Nevertheless, a random anime mention on Thursday drew him back to his Otaku roots. While it remains a mystery whether Musk has a burner account to separately flaunt his anime insight on the sidelines like a regular fan, he has not completely severed his fanboy identity from his official X account.
Elon Musk again reveals his love for the iconic anime film Your Name
The richest person quote-posted the ‘Anime Aesthetics’ (@anime_twits) page’s recent tweet about the iconic anime film Your Name, sharing stills of the leading characters who mysteriously swap bodies despite never having met each other.
“Beautiful movie,” Musk praised the movie three years after recommending it to an internet user new to anime content.
The SpaceX founder’s familiarity with this side of the entertainment world was also reflected in one of his November 6 posts. Sharing a “Dark MAGA Assemble” post, Musk re-shared a fan-edited video compiling moments from Donald Trump’s 2024 election campaign, including snippets of himself playing to the sound of the epic Europe song The Final Countdown. The edit was reworked to fit the style of anime opening themes. It heavily featured characters from new-age hit series like Jujutsu Kaisen, Demon Slayer and Attack on Titan.
Netizens react to Elon Musk's anime love
The Tesla Motors CEO’s latest allusion to the beloved anime film Your Name earned him quite the validation from fellow Otakus. It opened yet another discussion on why Japanese animation “does a much better job than Western movies capturing transcendent positive aspects of the human experiences these days.”
An X user joked how Musk had revised Trump’s MAGA ideology from “Make America Great Again” to “Make Anime Great Again.”
Someone else commented, “Elon watches anime too? The US gonna have the greatest governments ever lol.” A fourth person even shared what Elon Musk would look like as a Ghibli anime character. Yet another X user exclaimed, “ELON IS A WEEB.”