UC Berkeley canceled ‘Elon Fought the Law’ class, and people had jokes

Students at the UC Berkeley School of Law school received an email from the registrar Nov. 8: The spring class “Elon Fought the Law: The Law Won” had been canceled. Cue an internet explosion from Musk stans, who found the timing, three days after the election, troll-worthy. 

“I’m very sorry for the inconvenience,” wrote the school’s registrar, advising students to take note of the change before signing up for classes for the spring semester. After an X user uploaded a screenshot of the email, the jokes began flooding in.

“They should have titled it ‘The Law Fought Elon, The Law Lost,'” tweeted Luke Youngblood, the founder of Lunar Labs, a Bay Area Blockchain startup. 

“Now they should offer a course called: “How Elon Won 101,” jabbed Bob Theisen, an IT director at Caldwell Community College in North Carolina.

“It has come to our attention that you do in fact, have to hand it to him,” tweeted someone who goes by the username Bag Hunter.

“Dear Students,” joked one X user, “it pains me greatly to admit that we got our asses handed to us. … That’s why, next term, we will offer a new course: Woke People fought Reality: Reality Won.”

Even liberals had to admit that the optics, timing-wise, were not ideal: Far from losing to the law, Musk has been co-opting it, and his influence on the U.S. government has never been greater. 

“I’m grateful they canceled it, and I’m hoping the vibe shift continues and we can get back to celebrating the innovations that make SF and Silicon Valley the envy of the world,” said Youngblood, a Democrat, in an interview. “I suspect the course would have reinforced beliefs that have little basis in reality and further polarized those students.” 

The timing of the announcement was coincidental, according to Alex Shapiro, assistant dean of communications at Berkeley Law. The class was canceled because co-instructor Adam Sterling, who couldn’t be reached for comment, handed in his notice. “The class, which had not been offered before, aimed to examine Elon Musk’s legal opportunities and challenges from an objective business-law perspective,” said Shapiro. 

Sterling took to X to try to clarify things. 

“Nothing too controversial,” he wrote. “I’m leaving Berkeley this semester (so can’t teach there next semester). Hoping to still teach the class again in the near future and welcome to ideas! … I think the election makes the class even more interesting/important,” he added. “The enrollment period started this week so the class was removed from the schedule of classes prior to that.” 

But the jokes didn’t stop.

Some used the news to play up feuds between Berkeley and Stanford, like one user who claimed to be a Stanford computer science student. “This is why Stanford will always be better. We have NO course against elon musk. We love @elonmusk here (I want a Tesla internship),” the post said.

“They could have kept the course, only one word needed to be changed,” wrote user Double Descent, adding facepalm emojis. 

The actual title of the class was “Elon fought the law, and the law won?” — the question mark was accidentally omitted from the course listing, Sterling tweeted.

“[It] was intended to be a cheeky take on the song and a fun way to pique student interest,” he continued. “At this point, he has probably won more legal battles than lost!”

Musk responded to Sterling’s last comment directly, with the laughing crying emoji.