Just days after Elon Musk halted the enforcement of Twitter’s COVID-19 misinformation policy, the CEO tweeted that leading immunologist Dr. Anthony Fauci should be prosecuted. But Jimmy Fallon is pretty sure Fauci had some insults to give right back.
On Sunday, Musk tweeted, “My pronouns are Prosecute/Fauci,” both attacking Fauci and mocking the clarification of pronouns used by the transgender community and its allies. In another tweet on Sunday, Musk posted a meme suggesting that Fauci was begging his “king” Joe Biden for another lockdown.
But, during his monologue on Monday, Fallon was pretty sure he knew what Fauci’s response would be.
“Fauci was like, ‘Yep, much like a Tesla battery, Elon’s on fire,’” the late night host mocked. But Fallon had another comeback loaded up, as well.
“You could tell Fauci wasn’t having it because he wrote back, ‘Congrats on making Twitter the Johnson & Johnson vaccine of social media,’” Fallon sniped. From there, he moved on, mocking Musk’s latest announcement that Twitter will be increasing tweet character limits to 4,000 instead of the current 280.
Of course, Fauci actually did respond to Musk’s tweet — by saying he’d never truly respond.
“I don’t respond to him,” Fauci said in an upcoming interview with CNN commentator David Axelrod. “I don’t pay any attention to him because that’s merely a distraction, and if you get drawn into that — and, I have to be honest — that cesspool of interaction, there’s no value added to that, David. It doesn’t help anything.”
You can watch Fallon’s full monologue in the video above.