Trevor Noah jabbed at Elon Musk's early Twitter tenure, joking that if the new owner really wants to make money he should charge white people to say the 'n-word'
The comedian made fun of Elon Musk's Twitter deal on his show, calling his plan to charge $8 a month to keep the verification check mark "ridiculous."
Dimitrios Kambouris/Getty Images
- Comedian Trevor Noah ridiculed Elon Musk's plan to charge $8 a month for Twitter Blue on his show.
- Noah said if Musk charged white people to say the n-word Twitter would be "the most profitable company in history."
- He noted that the use of the N-word went up 500% in the first 12 hours after Musk became Twitter's owner.
Comedian Trevor Noah made fun of Elon Musk's plan to charge $8 a month for Twitter Blue, and said if he really wants to make money from Twitter, he should charge white people to say the N-word.
The Daily Show host said on Tuesday's show that he thought the $8-a-month charge is "ridiculous," and joked that an N-word charge would make Twitter "the most profitable company in history."
"Racists are going to be taking out loans," Noah joked.
Noah said that Twitter has debt and is "not profitable as a company," so the new charge was a way for Musk to "mitigate" the damage.
"I guess he's hoping that everyone else on Twitter will also make terrible financial decisions like he did," he said.
Noah started off his segment on Tuesday night in Atlanta talking about Musk, who he said "always looks like a ghost, whether it's Halloween or not."
"For months now, Musk has said that he wanted to own Twitter, right?," Noah said. "And the reason he wanted to own Twitter is because he wanted to make sure that it became a haven for free speech, right? He wanted to change it to that. Because, let's be honest, up until now, you know, people have really held back on Twitter."
After Musk officially became Twitter's owner last Thursday, Noah said, "we got a taste of this extra free speech."
"In the first 12 hours under Elon's ownership, the use of the N-word on Twitter shot up 500%," Noah said, sharing a photo of an Insider headline with the statistic, which was met with 'boos' from his audience.
The Network Contagion Research Institute tweeted the stat and a graph the day after Musk became the owner of Twitter, adding that "evidence suggests that bad actors are trying to test the limits on @Twitter."
—Network Contagion Research Institute (@ncri_io) October 28, 2022
Noah asked why it's always the "free speech people" who want to say the n-word more than any other word. He said it looks like Musk is "scrambling to figure out how to make this whole thing work," because he was "forced" to buy the platform for $44 billion.
"It was a troll that turned into a real, he used his free speech, and he paid a big price," Noah said.
The reason Musk gave for wanting to charge $8 a month for people to keep their verification is "even funnier," Noah said. Musk tweeted that "Twitter's current lords & peasants system for who has or doesn't have a blue checkmark is bullshit," when he announced Twitter Blue would be $8 a month.
—Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 1, 2022
Noah joked that if Musk's plan is to "create equality on Twitter," he should either give everyone a blue checkmark for free, or give it to no one.
"'It's all about equality' — no, you're trying to make money," Noah said.