Jimmy Kimmel Responds to Elon Musk Calling Him a ‘Propaganda Puppet’

Jimmy Kimmel is getting a lot of heat from Republicans following Donald Trump‘s election victory. Elon Musk referred to the late-night host as an “insufferable nonsense propaganda puppet” on X following the election results, leading Kimmel to respond on last night’s episode of Jimmy Kimmel Live.

During his monologue, Kimmel recounted how he had shared his thoughts on the election on his show and how he was “going to miss democracy.” “I heard from a lot of people about it, but none more prominent than the richest man in the world,” he told the audience. He then shared Musk’s tweet and responded, “At least my children like me.”

“I take issue with that,” Kimmel said of Musk’s claim. “The guy who paid people a million dollars a day to vote for Donald Trump is calling me a propaganda puppet. Listen Kermit, you bought Twitter. You bought a social media platform that is literally a propaganda machine. Let me tell you something: If I spent two weeks trying to come up with a four-word description of Elon Musk I don’t think I could do better than ‘insufferable nonsense propaganda puppet.’”

The host listed all of the things Musk has referred to as propaganda, including The Washington Post, The New York Times, and NPR. “Everything is propaganda to Elon Musk,” Kimmel said. “But what sucks for me is that for the last six months I’ve been working on a project and I was hoping to announce it in January when Trump takes office, but since the cat is now out of the bag, well, here it is. My new show.”

Kimmel then played a teaser for this (fake) new show, which is, of course, titled Insufferable Nonsense Propaganda Puppet.

Earlier this week, Kimmel made a heartfelt speech in response to the election. The host thoughtfully acknowledged all of the people who had been impacted by the choice of Trump over Democratic candidate Kamala Harris.

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“It was a terrible night for women, for children, for the hundreds of thousands of hard-working immigrants who make this country go,” he said, holding back tears. “For healthcare, for our climate, for scientists, for journalism, for justice, for free speech. It was a terrible night for poor people, for the middle class, for seniors who rely on Social Security, for our allies in Ukraine, for NATO, for the truth, and democracy, and decency. It was a terrible night for everyone who voted against him and guess what? It was a bad night for everyone who voted for him too, you just don’t realize it yet.”

He concluded the monologue by affirming, “I know a lot of people want to hear anything positive. I’ve been trying to come up with something positive. The best I can come up with is we’ve been through this once before and yes, this time it is probably going to be worse, maybe a lot worse, but I also think that maybe we will look back and realize that in the long run, this is what we needed to wake us up. Maybe the people who care so much about him need to find out how little he cares about them.”