Nicki Minaj posts a birthday selfie with Elon Musk thanking him for “saving free speech” in her latest MAGA-aligned move.
Nicki Minaj used her platform of 28 million X followers to wish Elon Musk a happy 55th birthday today, posting a selfie with the platform’s owner and thanking him for “saving free speech” on behalf of Gag City and the Barbz.
The photo, posted today on X, shows the two smiling together and reads: “Thank you for saving free speech, Elon. Happy Birthday. Love always. From Gag City & the Barbz!”
It’s the latest chapter in a budding friendship between Minaj and the world’s richest man that’s been building publicly since late 2025.
Musk bought Twitter for $44 billion in October 2022, famously calling himself a “free speech absolutist” and declaring that the platform needed to become a true digital town square.
He slashed content moderation staff, offered general amnesty to banned accounts, and repositioned X as a place where fewer voices would be silenced.
The free speech pitch was the core justification for the entire purchase, which he framed as a societal necessity rather than a business deal.
What followed tells a different story.
A 2025 study published in PLOS One by University of California, Berkeley researchers analyzed 4.7 million posts and found that hate speech on X ran roughly 50% higher in the eight months after Musk took over compared to the period before.
Racist, homophobic and transphobic slurs all increased during that window, and engagement with hateful posts climbed by 70%.
The platform’s handling of Ye illustrated the chaos in real time: Musk reinstated the rapper after an antisemitic posting spree, then suspended him weeks later after Ye posted a s####### fused with a Star of David, only for the account to be quietly restored again months later.
Nicki’s public embrace of Musk has been escalating steadily since November 2025, when she reposted one of his videos captioned “Speak Elon, we’re listening.”
By March 2026, she was calling him “our leader” in a post that left her own fanbase genuinely confused.
The SpaceX visit last month was the most visible moment yet, with Minaj showing up at Starbase in Texas for the Starship V3 launch, appearing live on the broadcast, and telling the crowd, “Major shoutout to Elon. Thank you for everything that you’re doing for humanity.”
Musk welcomed her on X and the two traded compliments after a hydraulic pin issue scrubbed the launch.
That SpaceX appearance fits a broader pattern that has already cost Minaj her Met Gala invitation and drawn a growing wave of criticism from longtime fans.
Since December 2025 she’s appeared at Turning Point USA’s AmericaFest, stood onstage with Trump at the White House calling herself his “No. 1 fan,” and posted AI-generated birthday tribute images featuring herself alongside Trump and Musk.
According to TIME, she told the magazine she had supported Trump privately for years but feared the backlash from an industry she described as a “Democratic family.”
The Musk birthday post lands on the same day the tech billionaire turns 55, fresh off becoming the world’s first trillionaire after the SpaceX IPO earlier this month.
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