Elon Musk's Schedule Didn't Afford Him the Time or the Patience to Learn Violin

Few public figures have had the sort of reputation roller coaster ride that Elon Musk has. His rise came on the back of Tesla, and many praised him as a genius for his ability to make EVs cool. In more recent years, though, the world's richest man has pitched hard to the right, and he's now intimately involved in the second Trump administration.

Now that Musk is a deeply polarizing figure, some are wondering whether he has any sort of hidden talent. Some even wondered whether he can play the violin. Here's what we know about whether he has that talent.

Elon Musk cannot play the violin. Although there are videos of him circulating on TikTok that seem to suggest he can play the instrument, that's not actually the case. Those videos were generated by AI, which is why they don't look completely real.

There's actually an interview with Musk where he makes it quite clear that he can't play the violin.

In 2013, Musk was speaking with Sal Khan, the founder of Khan Academy, when he said that he once tried to learn the violin. "That's, by the way, a hard thing to learn," Musk says during the interview. After Khan talks about all the ways that Musk has revolutionized the world, Musk emphasizes the point by saying "I cannot play the violin at all. Very horrible."

Whatever his other talents, then, it's pretty clear that Musk does not play the violin.

Although playing the violin is certainly a cool skill, at the moment, Musk likely has his hands full with other endeavors. In addition to being the CEO of both X and Tesla, as well as his rocket launching company SpaceX, Musk is also running the Department of Government Efficiency, which has run rampant through the federal government since Trump took office, dismantling entire departments through mass firings.

All of these changes are being done in the name of efficiency, but DOGE has already had to walk back multiple firings because it accidentally fired employees who were crucial to monitoring disease or taking care of nuclear weapons.

It's unclear how much of Musk's action will stand up in court, but this full-court press has been alarming to many, including some who voted for Trump but didn't realize that Musk was part of the bargain.

While there are certainly plenty of people who admire Musk's "move fast and break things" approach to the federal government, there are also plenty of people who worry about the long-term consequences of all of these firings.

Musk, who is reportedly sleeping on a couch or on the floor in his office most nights, doesn't really have time for violin at the moment. There are plenty of people, though, particularly on the left, who feel like we'd all be a little better off if Musk spent more of his time on violin, and less of it on dismantling decades of government bureaucracy.