Elon Musk has made a habit of using Greek words or letters to post on X, formerly Twitter, sending his millions of followers scratching their heads over the meaning.
In January 2023, he tweeted Omega (Ω), the last letter in the Greek alphabet, and his tweet went viral, with 7.3 million views in a few hours.
Ω
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) January 29, 2023
What does Elon Musk mean by Omega?
His social media followers tried to interpret the message Musk wanted to get across. Some of those who knew that omega is the last letter of the Greek alphabet assumed that Musk was about to finish something.
Some argued that Musk’s post symbolized the last place in a group of objects, while others wrote that it was an attempt by the South African billionaire to show that he is “the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end.” Some joked that it refers to the watch company or said it symbolized the end of Twitter. Other theories went so far as to translate the post as “the end of the coronavirus.”
Musk explained shortly afterward that he used the Omega letter as it is used in physics: to resist the current. The ohm (symbol: Ω) is the unit of electrical resistance in the International System of Units (SI). It is named after German physicist Georg Simon Ohm.
Resist the current
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) January 30, 2023
The letter Omega (Ω) is used as a symbol in biology, biochemistry and chemistry, physics, computer science, and mathematics. In sociology, is used to refer to the lowest-ranking member of a group.
Musk tweeted in Greek before
It is not the first time the business magnate and investor tweeted something that mystified his followers.
In October 2022, he tweeted just one word in Greek: “διαλεκτική,” which means dialectic and sent his millions of followers searching for their dictionaries.
διαλεκτική
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 25, 2022
The mysterious post generated more than seven thousand messages by the following morning on his official profile as, apparently, there were many questions about the meaning hidden behind the choice of this particular word by Musk.
Dialectic (Greek: διαλεκτική), also known as the dialectical method, is a discourse between two or more people holding different points of view about a subject but wishing to establish the truth through reasoned argumentation.
In classical Greek philosophy, dialectic is a form of reasoning based upon dialog of arguments and counter-arguments, advocating propositions (theses), and counter-propositions (antitheses).
In 2021, Elon Musk tweeted a reply by writing in ancient Greek: εἰδέναι μὲν μηδὲν πλὴν αὐτὸ τοῦτο εἰδέναι.
εἰδέναι μὲν μηδὲν πλὴν αὐτὸ τοῦτο εἰδέναι
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) June 16, 2021
This translates to: “he knew nothing but one thing, that he knew nothing.” It is a paraphrase from Plato’s account of the Greek philosopher Socrates, “I know that I know nothing.”
Socrates himself was never recorded as having said this phrase, and scholars generally agree that Socrates only ever asserted that he believed that he knew nothing, having never claimed he asserted he knew nothing.
Another recent tweet by Elon Musk upset Turkish Twitter users. The Tesla founder tweeted a meme of a Byzantine soldier who is in bed thinking to himself whether he “locked the gate” and under the image: 1453 Constantinople.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) June 17, 2022
Musk’s cryptic tweet has puzzled many with Turkish users asking themselves whether it was a positive or negative tweet or why Musk referred to the date the city fell…or why he didn’t call it Istanbul.
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