Jimmy Kimmel doubles down on Elon Musk mockery after Tesla CEO lashes out

‘Authorities are now investigating which Teslas were set on fire - and which set themselves on fire,’ joked Kimmel

Jimmy Kimmel has fired back at Elon Musk after the billionaire and senior advisor to Donald Trump branded the late night talk show host an “unfunny jerk“ for jokes he made about Tesla.

On the Wednesday (19 March) edition of his show Kimmel poked fun at Musk and Tesla as protests and arson attacks against the electric car company continue in the United States.

Musk responded to the protesters by calling them “deranged” during a Fox News interview but Kimmel had little sympathy for the tech entrepreneur. “Well, let me see if I can explain it for you: When you pull out a chainsaw to celebrate firing thousands of people, they get mad,” joked Kimmel.

He added: “My god. I mean, this poor guy. You do one, maybe two Nazi salutes, everybody gets all bent out of shape!”

On his own social media platform, X, Musk responded to the clip by writing: “What a jerk.” A few minutes later he posted again, adding: “He’s such an unfunny jerk.”

Following Musk’s retort, Kimmel used his monologue on the Thursday (20 March) edition of his show to mock the head of DOGE again. Kimmel said: “Tesla is not having a good week. Today they issued a recall of nearly all 46,000 of their Cybertrucks. That’s the eighth Cybertruck recall since they came out in November of 2023. It’s 15 months – 8 recalls.

A burned Tesla Cybertruck is parked at a Tesla lot in Seattle, Monday, March 10, 2025 (AP)

“I mentioned last night multiple Teslas were burned at a Tesla facility in Las Vegas. Authorities are now investigating which Teslas were set on fire – and which set themselves on fire,” Kimmel joked.

“And while no one should be setting anything on fire, ever, people are mad at Elon Musk for randomly and gleefully putting thousands of Americans out of work, including veterans. But the MAGA gang, which has been very against any kind of violent protest since January 7, was it? 2021? That’s when they started being against it – they are highly upset.”

Last month, Musk waved a chainsaw around on stage at at the Conservative Political Action Conference. The display of the power tool was apparently intended as a reference to the figurative chainsaw Musk is taking to the federal government.

In January, Musk had been accused of giving what appeared to be two fascist salutes during a speech praising the inauguration of Donald Trump.