Elon Musk jokingly responds to memes of his shirtless vacation photos: ‘Free the nip!’

The Tesla CEO has weighed in on the social media response to his shirtless pics

Elon Musk has jokingly addressed recent viral photos of himself where he’s shirtless and aboard a yacht during a vacation in Greece.

This week, the 51-year-old Tesla CEO was photographed sunning himself with friends on a yacht in Mykonos, Greece. In the photos, Musk is wearing a bathing suit with a drink in his hand and a towel wrapped around his waist.

Shortly after the photographs were taken, they went viral on social media and many users turned the pictures of the SpaceX CEO into memes -- largely due to Musk’s pale skin tone in the images.

Musk has since responded to some of the memes on Twitter, including one in which a photo of him taken from the side was placed side-by-side with a photo of a white bulldog standing on its hind legs.

“My calves are bigger tho,” Musk responded to the tweet, with the reply earning him more than 6,000 likes.

Musk also responded to a tweet from an individual who shared one of the shirtless photos of  the world’s richest man and wrote: “F**k yea I got my $ behind this man. So many other smart investors.”

In response to the tweet, the 51 year old wrote: “Haha damn, maybe I should take off my shirt more often… free the nip!!”

He then took the opportunity to assure his followers that he was back to work, adding: “(Already back in the factory btw).”

The tweet, which was liked more than 108,000 times, prompted amused responses from Musk’s followers, with many praising the entrepreneur for poking fun at the memes of himself.

“Elon, I love that you can laugh at yourself. Silence the bullies because you always show up to be part of the conversation. Hope you enjoyed Mykonos,” one person wrote, while another said: “I can’t stop laughing.”

Others encouraged Musk, who has a net worth of $234bn, to take more time off and be sure to use sunscreen when he does.