Green Day Takes a Stand Against Elon Musk at Johannesburg Concert: “I Don’t Support Elon’s Agenda”

Green Day Takes Aim at Elon Musk

Green Day shot down Elon Musk during a recent concert in South Africa – watch video of the performance below.

Concert Highlights in Johannesburg

On Sunday (January 19), Green Day played their first show of the year at FNB Stadium in Johannesburg, South Africa. While performing “American Idiot,” frontman Billie Joe Armstrong altered some of the song’s lyrics to take a jab at X (formerly Twitter) and Tesla owner Elon Musk.

Over the past year, Elon Musk, originally from Pretoria, South Africa, has played a significant role in Donald Trump’s attempt to return to the White House, defending him as President of the United States. Consequently, Musk was tasked with heading Trump’s Department of Government Effectiveness.

Armstrong sang during “American Idiot”:I’m not on Elon’s agenda“, specifically replacing the “village agenda” line. Check it out below.

The band’s lyric change came after Green Day performed at Dick Clark’s New Year’s Rockin’ Eve concert on December 31, 2023, where they similarly called out Donald Trump, singing, “I’m not part of the MAGA agenda.”

A couple of days later, in early 2024, Musk mocked the group for their edits, writing in a post on X, “Green Day goes from rage against the machine to sweet rage over it,” accompanied by a pair of laughing and crying emojis.

Green Day bassist Mike Dirnt responded in an Independent article: “Elon Musk is actually a machine. I can’t take anything else out of this. He’s not shy about talking nonsense on the Internet. Whatever. The song is twenty years old, and we are Green Day. What did you expect?”

Elon Musk has yet to respond to Green Day’s latest taunt.

Previous Critiques of Trump

Green Day’s jab at Trump in late 2023 wasn’t the first time they took a stance. At the 2016 American Music Awards (AMA), the legendary punk trio led chants of “No Trump, no KKK, no fascist USA” to protest the then-presidential candidate.

In August 2023, the group announced a limited-time sale of a Donald Trump T-shirt for charity. The t-shirt, named Ultimate Nimrod, used a viral photo of Trump, recreating the iconic “Nimrod” cover, with the album title obscuring Trump’s face.

Ahead of the 2024 US presidential election, Armstrong urged fans to vote for Kamala Harris: “Vote for Harris. I think there are probably a lot of things that people don’t agree on, but the one thing we agree on is that Trump needs to go and we need to turn the page.”