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Elon Musk still hates on SF — just not as much as he did last year

A close analysis of the mogul's tweets reveals a slight dip in SF trolling — and one positive retweet of a Standard story.

Illustration shows Elon Musk superimposed on an iPhone
Elon Musk fired off fewer nasty tweets about SF in 2024. | Source: Photo illustration by Kyle Victory for The Standard / Getty Images
By Tomoki Chien

It’s no secret that Elon Musk has it out for San Francisco.

The world’s richest man has, after all, turned SF-hating into a spectator sport for the MAGA masses of X.

His slights generally boil down to two categories: The city is a crime-ridden wasteland where homeless drug addicts freely roam, and the city is run by a liberal cabal infected with the “woke mind virus.”

But an analysis of Musk’s tweets shows that he may be coming down from his SF-hating peak. In 2023, Musk referred to the city as a “Mad Max” apocalyptic zombie wasteland six times. This year, he did so just twice. Thanks, Elon!

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Still, he did post his share of unhinged comments. In his most retweeted SF post of the year, Musk alleged that several X employees had been threatened by a machete-wielding man on Market Street who later killed three people. 

That was in response to a post by “@EndWokeness” celebrating that “California politicians are finally facing the ramifications of their pro-crime policies.” 

Musk claimed his employees didn’t report the machete man’s threat because that “doesn’t constitute an arrestable crime in California.” Not accurate: You can be jailed for brandishing a deadly weapon in a threatening manner, per the California penal code.

In a separate post months later, Musk recounted the same incident — albeit with several changes in details. The murderer carried an ax, rather than a machete, and killed one person, not three. 

The Standard was unable to verify either of Musk’s accounts, but similar crimes have happened in the city — albeit none have been reported since 2022.

Another Musk hit this year: The world is doomed, he said, if the “Mad-Max-in-real-life of downtown San Francisco propagates to the world.”

Short but effective: The post earned more than 29 million views.

Another memorable moment came when Musk called on the city to “fire” Aaron Peskin, the famously progressive supervisor. That was a handy reprise of 2023’s “Prison for Peskin” and Musk’s similar call to lock up Dean Preston, another progressive supervisor.

Don’t get too wrapped up in the negative posts, though. Musk had more nice things to say about the city this year than last. 

Sure, most had to do with his insistence that the Bay Area is growing more Trumpy. But he said plenty of things that had nothing to do with a perceived MAGA surge.

In March, he replied to The Standard’s story about a rise in Union Square nightlife with a decidedly positive message.


After the Nov. 5 election, Musk took to X to celebrate that “Things are looking better for California and San Francisco.” 

Also, consider this: In 2023, Musk made eight posts that skewered SF’s “Doom Loop.” This year, there were none.

That said, take his tweets with a grain of salt. Remember this one?

That worked out well.

See all of Musk’s 2024 tweets that contain San Francisco-related keywords, in chronological order, below.

Tomoki Chien can be reached at tchien@sfstandard.com

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