Elon Musk Shares MAGA Tweet Calling Tom Hanks a 'Pedo'

Elon Musk clearly isn't a fan of Tom Hanks, and the feeling's likely mutual.

The SpaceX founder and DOGE mastermind, who is currently helping the Trump administration gut federal spending by laying off thousands of government employees, freezing grants and scaling back regulatory checks and balances, took a fiery (pun intended) swipe at the Oscar-winning actor Monday (Feb. 17) when he re-tweeted an X post calling Hanks a "pedo."

The original tweet, which came attached to a selfie of a woman wearing a MAGA hat, reads: "Hey pedo @tomhanks, not ALL #MAGA hat wearing patriots are white. In fact, most racism comes from the elite Democrats, you a--hole."

Musk re-posted the tweet along with two fire emojis, seemingly co-signing the statement.

The original tweet was posted in response to a Saturday Night Live 50 special sketch that aired this past weekend.

In the sketch called "Black Jeopardy," Hanks plays a MAGA hat-wearing man who initially refuses to shake the hand of the game show's Black host, played by Kenan Thompson.

The sketch offended many conservatives and Trump supporters online, who bashed Hanks' appearance as "disgusting" and "unfunny."

As for the aforementioned tweet's claim that Hanks is a "pedo," it's possible the woman who posted the message on X was referring to the rumors and misinformation that's been spread on right-wing social media alleging Hanks flew on Jeffrey Epstein's private plane.

According to Reuters, the claim, which has been circulating online for the past few years, was debunked, and Hanks' name does not appear on any Epstein flight logs.

Musk, however, does have some bizarre and unclear connections to known sex traffickers such as Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell, who groomed minors and preyed on underage girls.

In 2023, the U.S. Virgin Island subpoenaed Musk for documents allegedly containing communications between Musk and Epstein dating back over 20 years.

According to The Austin American-Statesman:

Those documents include communication between the two and any fees Musk paid to Epstein or JPMorgan in connection with Musk’s accounts, transactions or relationship at JPMorgan Chase, as well as any documents regarding Epstein’s involvement in human trafficking or "his procurement of girls or women for commercial sex."

In the court filing, the Virgin Islands wrote they believe Epstein “may have referred or attempted to refer” Musk to JPMorgan Chase as a potential client.

Back in 2018, in an interview with The New York Times published after Epstein's 2019 death in jail, Epstein claimed he had previously advised Tesla when Musk was considering taking his company private.

Epstein also said that Musk and Tesla would deny his involvement.

On X (formerly Twitter) in 2023, Musk called the subpoena "idiotic" and claimed "that cretin [Epstein] never advised me on anything whatsoever."

However, back in 2019, Musk reportedly told Vanity Fair that he and his former wife, Taluah Riley, had previously been to Epstein's home in Manhattan, and that he even declined a personal invitation to Epstein's island.

"[Taluah] was curious about meeting this strange person for a novel she was writing. We did not see anything inappropriate at all, apart from weird art. He tried repeatedly to get me to visit his island. I declined," Musk reportedly said, according to The Times.

Musk and Riley were married between 2010 to 2012, and 2013 to 2016.

As for Musk's supposed connection to Maxwell, all that exists publicly between the two is a photo of Musk and Maxwell together taken at a Vanity Fair party in 2014.

Musk has since denied knowing Maxwell personally and maintains his claim that the convicted sex trafficker simply "photobombed" him at the event.

Musk's Tom Hanks re-tweet isn't the first time he's called someone—or amplified a person calling someone else—a "pedo."

In 2018, Musk called heroic British cave diver Vernon Unsworth, who helped rescue 12 boys trapped in an underwater cave in Thailand, a "pedo guy" in a tweet after the two men got into a spat on social media regarding Musk's involvement in the rescue mission.

Unsworth, who was "humiliated" by the tweet, sued Musk for defamation in 2019 but lost the case.

BBC reports Musk's lawyer "argued that the 'pedo guy' tweet was an offhand comment made in the course of an argument between the two men, which no-one could be expected to take seriously."

According to Google's Dictionary per Oxford Languages, the informal noun "pedo" means "a person who is sexually attracted to children; a pedophile."