Stephen King makes surprise return to X to issue blistering attack on Trump and Musk

‘I’m baaaack! Did you miss me?’ joked the author

Acclaimed horror author Stephen King has made a surprise return to X/Twitter and immediately targetted Donald Trump and the website’s owner, Elon Musk.

The writer, who has penned such classics as The Shining, It and Carrie, is one of the many notable individuals to leave X in recent months following Trump’s return to the White House.

On 14 November 2024, King wrote: “I’m leaving Twitter. Tried to stay, but the atmosphere has just become too toxic. Follow me on Threads, if you like.“

The 77-year-old has also used Bluesky as an alternative platform where he has continued his anti-Trump rhetoric. In December, King warned his followers that Musk was “running the show” for Trump.

Just three months after leaving the platform, King made an unexpected return to X/Twitter on Thursday (20 February), just before the release of The Monkey, a new horror film based on one of his short stories.

In his first post, King jokingly wrote: “I’m baaaack! Did you miss me?”

The writer then quickly followed this up by adding: “Just wanted to say that Trump is a traitorous, Putin-loving dips***! Goes double for Elon!”

Stephen King and Elon Musk have made no secret of their dislike of each other (Getty Images)

It comes amid tensions between the US and Ukraine over ending the war with Russia continued to grow as Musk launched a scathing attack on Volodymyr Zelensky.

Claiming, without evidence, that Ukrainians “despised” their leader, Musk said that Trump was right to leave him out of talks with Russia.

Musk made the remarks after the president sparked outrage by trying to silence Zelensky, who was defending himself over the president’s “dictator” slur.

The White House told Ukraine’s leader on Thursday to “tone down” his language, which included a remark that Trump lived in a Russian “disinformation space”.

Musk launched his tirade against Mr Zelensky on X, accusing him of running a "massive graft machine feeding off the dead bodies of Ukrainian soldiers”.

"He knows he would lose in a landslide, despite having seized control of all Ukrainian media, so he cancelled the election. In reality, he is despised by the people of Ukraine," the SpaceX boss wrote.

In a previous X post, Mr Musk had attacked Mr Zelensky for posing with his wife in a Vogue photoshoot three years ago while Ukrainians were “dying in trenches”.