---
title: "Alleged Tech Genius Elon Musk Makes Programming Joke That Makes Zero Sense"
description: "Elon Musk made a programming joke about deleting the \"woke mind virus\" from his brain, betraying his limited knowledge of the field."
date: "2025-01-14"
modified: "2025-01-14"
authors:
  - name: "Frank Landymore"
    job_title: "Contributing Writer"
    link: "https://futurism.com/authors/flandymore"
url: "https://futurism.com/the-byte/elon-musk-programming-zero-sense"
categories:
  - "Elon Musk"
  - "Future Society"
  - "The Industrialists"
tags:
  - "elon musk"
  - "Programming"
  - "the digest"
---

# Alleged Tech Genius Elon Musk Makes Programming Joke That Makes Zero Sense

![Elon Musk made a programming joke about deleting the "woke mind virus" from his brain, betraying his limited knowledge of the field.](<https://futurism.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/elon-musk-programming-zero-sense.jpg>)
*\<em\>Image: Allison Robbert / Pool via Getty / Futurism\</em\>*

## Script Kiddy

Is Elon Musk a generational tech genius? Evidence suggests not.

We submit this poorly constructed, years-in-the-making joke that Musk seemingly made to flaunt his programmer — and culture warrior — cred, in which he bizarrely admits to having once been "woke."

"traceroute woke\_mind\_virus," Musk wrote in a [tweet](<https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1472371245744373760>) in December 2021 in the style of a Linux command.

Now, years later, he's followed it up [with this mockery of command terminals](<https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1877956343199420867>) everywhere:

woke\_mind\_virus found at 127.0.0.1

woke\_mind\_virus deleted rm -rf.

The "joke" is that the IP, 127.0.0.1, is the localhost, or the computer that's being currently used (which many were quick to point on [on social media](<https://www.reddit.com/r/MurderedByWords/comments/1hzvqjf/enron_musk_has_the_woke_mind_virus/>)). Ergo, Elon's brain. Corny stuff that only gets worse when Musk follows up on it.

"Local host was infected," replied one user. "But not anymore," Musk [responded](<https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1877957057271242917>).

https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1877956343199420867

## Does Not Compute

This joke doesn't work for multiple reasons, so please indulge us as we overanalyze it.

The [traceroute command](<https://www.geeksforgeeks.org/traceroute-command-in-linux-with-examples/>) does what it says on the tin: it displays the path that a request made to a server takes through the internet. It does not, however, do the job of actually "finding" something. So "woke\_mind\_virus found" is a non sequitur. The standard way to lookup files is literally just the "find" command — but our guess is that Elon thought "traceroute" sounded smarter.

But whatever. Let's say he did find the woke mind virus. In Elon's joke, it's found at an IP address — his brain — suggesting it's a running virus/application with its own server.

Then he uses the very [powerful and](<https://www.geeksforgeeks.org/rm-rf-command-in-linux-with-examples/>) [dangerous-to-wield](<https://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/666766/is-yes-rm-r-safer-than-rm-rf>) "rm -rf" command, which forcefully removes an entire folder or directory and all its files *without* asking you for confirmation. Permanently.

Using this command for a single virus is overkill. To reiterate, the point of the remove command with the -rf flag is to nuke entire directories, not the odd file.

Here's where things get extra dumb. Elon elides showing us the actual deletion command, but he does show its success message in the form of "woke\_mind\_virus deleted rm -rf." This is also puzzling, because these commands normally [don't output a message saying the file was deleted](<https://www.geeksforgeeks.org/rm-command-linux-examples/>).

Now in his defense, it could be that "woke\_mind\_virus delete rm -rf" is meant to be the deletion command — but if this is the case the order is all wrong, and since no directory is specified, nothing would be deleted anyway.

In sum: this joke is not the product of a programming virtuoso's upper story.

**More on Elon Musk:** *[Firefighter Shuts Down Elon Musk to His Face](<https://futurism.com/the-byte/firefighter-elon-musk>)*

## Author
At Futurism, my work has often centered on bringing a sense of clarity and insight to complex topics ranging from the regulation of emerging technologies to the esoteric ideologies of Silicon Valley executives, while striving not to lose the poetic sense of awe inspired by often-obscure fields like astrophysics and quantum computing. I broke the story of CNET using AI to produce articles that turned out to be riddled with factual errors and plagiarism — a dam-breaking inflection point, as I've reported, that's inspired copycats and endless discourse while beguiling stakeholders ranging from tech giants to purveyors of spam around the web. My work at Futurism has been cited by publications including CBS News, the Los Angeles Times, Vice, Gizmodo, Engadget, the Verge, and Vanity Fair. I grew up in locales ranging from India to China, and now live in the exotic suburbs of Virginia. In my free time, I'm an avid reader of weird sci-fi literature, an aficionado of East Asian cinema, and, regrettably, a relapsed gamer. Allegedly, I’m working on a debut novel, currently untitled.

### Author social links  
[Bluesky](<https://bsky.app/profile/f-w-l.bsky.social>)