Stanford University graduates were given creative advice from above as an airplane flew over the graduation ceremony with a banner reading, “CONGRATS! DON’T WORK FOR ELON.”
The moment was captured last Sunday during the university’s 134th Commencement ceremony, where the Class of 2025 received their degrees at Stanford Stadium.
The plane’s arrival coincided with the speech of the university's president, Jonathan Levin, who acknowledged that the Stanford Class of 2025 will be remembered as “the class that brought back fun.” Levin snarkily referred to Stanford’s discouragement of social activities, parties, and clubs over the years.
In attendance was Jon Hartley, an economics researcher and policy fellow at the university’s Hoover Institution, who posted about the disruption on X. Funny enough, Musk’s most famous venture, X (formerly known as Twitter), relocated from its iconic California headquarters to Bastrop, Texas, in 2023.
The red-lettered anti-Musk sign and airplane can be seen below:
No one has yet taken responsibility for the aerial announcement to graduates.
The university's close proximity to Silicon Valley fosters an environment conducive to entrepreneurship, technology, and business majors. Stanford graduates often find opportunities at numerous startups, including those founded or partly owned by Elon Musk, such as Tesla, SpaceX, xAI, The Boring Company, and Neuralink, which is located in Fremont, California.
Anti-Musk sentiments were not the only disruption at the ceremony, as approximately 150 pro-Palestine students walked out in protest, calling out the University’s stance on the war in Gaza and their submissive response when dealing with the Trump administration.
Referring to Harvard’s decision not to accept Trump’s demands, students and faculty demanded a strong condemnation of the administration's attempt to influence hiring practices based on race and audits on department teachings to ensure they are “viewpoint diverse.”
Holding their own signs that read “The People’s University,” the protesting students publicized the walkout on Instagram, asking graduates to:
“Join the Class of 2025 in rejecting Stanford’s insatiable greed, as they cower to the federal administration, maintain complicity in genocide, and prioritize profit over students.”
In June 2024, 12 Pro-Palestine protestors broke into and vandalized a Stanford University administration building before barricading the doors. According to a Stanford spokesperson, the students were eventually arrested the same day and received two-quarter suspensions with “probation, delayed degree conferrals, and community service hours.”
And this last April, prosecutors added to the punishments by announcing felony charges, which has been a common response in California for demonstrations and encampments on campuses protesting Israel’s war in Gaza.
An organizer of the walkout named Emma told the Stanford Daily:
“We walked out in protest of the University’s complicity, in support of Palestine and in recognition of all the Palestinians who should have been graduating this year but haven’t, because they’ve been murdered.”
The protesting students held their own commencement ceremony called “The People’s Commencement” at the university's Arboretum Grove. Needless to say, this year’s Stanford graduation was quite eventful, almost overshadowing 14-time Olympic medalist and Stanford psychology alumnus Katie Ledecky’s commencement speech.
Ledecky, who missed her own graduation training for the Tokyo Olympic trials, told the Stanford Daily:
“This is my first time really experiencing a graduation… I’m excited to just crash their events and get a feel for that sort of celebration.”
Her speech can be seen below:
- YouTubeStanford/YouTube
The Commencement ceremony’s planned and unplanned events were the talk of the internet, with commenters reacting to the anti-Musk sign:
u/CantStopPoppin/Reddit
u/Fullfullhar/Reddit
u/RealisticBus4443/Reddit
u/iampuh/Reddit
u/Throwaway-centralnj/Reddit
u/bac2qh/Reddit
u/pabloivan57/Reddit
u/jenroberts10156/Threads
u/priyankawalia/Threads
u/mi2media/Threads
u/b.a.d.company94/Threads
u/adventuredad2025/Threads
Elon Musk’s xAI company was recently threatened with a lawsuit by the NAACP over air pollution from its data center in Memphis, Tennessee. The Southern Environmental Law Center sent a warning letter to the AI company signaling its intent to sue over the violation of the Clean Air Act in the company’s usage of methane gas turbines without the required permits or pollution controls.
So, it's probably for best that Stanford graduates avoid all of Musk-related companies, products, and services in the near future.
