Elon Musk Walks off a Stage Without His Son as a Woman Yells That He Was Leaving His Little Boy
Some people think Elon Musk is using his son as a prop.
Published Feb. 24 2025, 10:58 a.m. ET
It's no secret that the digital world is contributing to memory issues for those who are even a little bit online. In May 2018, the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology published a research paper that found "across three studies, participants without media consistently remembered their experiences more precisely than participants who used media." That makes sense, as everything we need is literally in the palm of our hands.
Perhaps it was a social media-related memory lapse that caused X (formerly Twitter) owner Elon Musk to walk off a stage without his son. Not only does Elon post to his own social media account with more frequency than most, but he runs the joint. If anyone has memory issues, it's gotta be Elon. The incident occurred in January 2025 at a pre-inauguration event. It was caught on video and began making the rounds on social media, thus ensuring we can't forget about it. Read on for details.
Elon Musk walks off a stage without his son as the audience shouts at him.
On Jan. 19, 2025, President Donald Trump held a political rally in Washington, D.C. the day before his second inauguration. After mentioning the creation of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), which would be led by Elon, the president invited the CEO of Tesla onto the stage. Elon brought his son with him, saying, "Little X just followed me on the stage here. He's a very enthusiastic supporter, as you can see."
Elon thanked President Trump for the introduction and spoke for less than a minute about all the big changes he was looking forward to making. "So, yeah. So, anyway, we're going to do great things here. Thank you," he concluded. In a video recorded by an attendee, Elon walks off stage and down a set of stairs while X trails behind him. Elon waves at the crowd and quickly ducks backstage. A woman can be heard yelling, "Wait, you're leaving your little boy," before the video ends.
About a month later, the video resurfaced on Reddit in the r/Fauxmoi subreddit where users were very critical of the SpaceX founder's actions. "Well he uses him as a shield," commented one person. "Don’t need it as much when you’re no longer on stage." Another chimed in with, "Of course he did. Attention span of a gnat. Of no further transactional use to him at that moment." Most of the comments echoed these statements, suggesting that X is just a prop for his father.