A few weeks ago Billie Eilish campaigned for billionaires to act like they actually give a fuck. “Give your money away, shorties,” she said during an acceptance speech at Wall Street Journal‘s annual awards show. Although comically casual, she very much made a good point: The world is getting scarier and scarier and the wealth gap is getting bigger and bigger. Now, she’s continuing to speak out against insane wealth with the news that Elon Musk is the world’s first trillionaire.
On her Instagram Stories, she shared a myvoicemychoiceorg post that listed all the issues Musk could help with his big, bottomless pit of cash: end world hunger, cure disease, save endangered species, rebuild Gaza, and end maternity deaths. In a later story, Eilish added “etc…. fucking pathetic pussy bitch coward.” Well put! It’s actually insane to think that one person has enough financial power to do any of that and instead choses to build a shitty retro diner and perpetuate white supremacy.
Eilish isn’t the only artist to openly question Musk’s wealth and lack of humanitarian efforts recently. Last week, author Joyce Carol Oates wondered if Musk enjoys any of the beautiful riches of being human as one of the richest human to exist. “In fact he seems totally uneducated, uncultured. The poorest persons on Twitter may have access to more beauty & meaning in life than the ‘most wealthy person in the world,” her post read. Musk was not happy with her. “You are a taker, not a maker,” he wrote in a counter response.
Joyce Carol Oates continued to post about Musk in the days following, making some incredibly astute points that we should keep thinking about:
Truly it was out of curiosity: why a person with unlimited resources exhibits so little appreciation or even awareness of the things that most people value as giving meaning to life. Just minimally well to do people donate to charities, local museums & libraries & the like; they support the commonweal. & unlike the very wealthy these people pay high income taxes.
I like this trend. This is a good trend. Wealthy celebrities, let’s keep it going.
So curious that such a wealthy man never posts anything that indicates that he enjoys or is even aware of what virtually everyone appreciates— scenes from nature, pet dog or cat, praise for a movie, music, a book (but doubt that he reads); pride in a friend’s or relative’s… https://t.co/xMxQGSVqEt
— Joyce Carol Oates (@JoyceCarolOates) November 8, 2025
Truly it was out of curiosity: why a person with unlimited resources exhibits so little appreciation or even awareness of the things that most people value as giving meaning to life. Just minimally well to do people donate to charities, local museums & libraries & the like; they… https://t.co/uTUPB2pbQR
— Joyce Carol Oates (@JoyceCarolOates) November 10, 2025
