Elon Musk Laughing At Dead Deer — Elon Musk laughing beside an image of a dead deer floating in a pool

Elon Musk Laughing At Dead Deer

2019viral videoclassic

Published August 19, 2026

Elon Musk Laughing At Dead Deer is a viral video clip from PewDiePie's Meme Review where Musk chuckles at a photo of a deer at the bottom of a pool, then keeps laughing after being told the deer actually drowned. The moment aired on February 22, 2019, during an episode Musk co-hosted with Rick and Morty creator Justin Roiland.

elon musk memes pewdiepie memes dark humor memes celebrity reaction memes tonal whiplash memes

Overview

Elon Musk Laughing At Dead Deer is a short clip pulled from a 2019 episode of PewDiePie's Meme Review, the YouTube series where guest hosts roast internet memes fans send in1. In the fragment, Musk chuckles at a photo of a deer lying at the bottom of a swimming pool captioned 'Why my dolphin not working lol,' then keeps laughing after being told the deer was actually dead1.

Musk's co-host that day was Rick and Morty co-creator Justin Roiland3, whose background giggling made the awkward beat land harder. The bit stuck because Musk's amusement did not shift once the reveal turned grim, giving viewers a compact image of the billionaire's darker sense of humor4.

Origin & Background

Platform
YouTube (Meme Review) / Reddit (viral spread)
Creator
PewDiePie
Date
2019

The clip comes from an episode titled 'Will Smith hosts Meme Review' that PewDiePie's channel published on February 22, 2019, with Musk and Roiland stepping in as guest hosts of the series1. Meme Review itself was a recurring segment on PewDiePie's channel where the host and rotating guests reacted to memes submitted by viewers or trending that week2.

The specific image being reviewed showed a deer floating in a backyard pool, jokingly captioned as if the poster's robotic dolphin were on the fritz1. Musk's first laugh was reflexive, but the second round of laughter after Roiland pointed out the animal had drowned turned the segment into the standout beat of the full episode1.

How It Spread

Later on February 22, 2019, a YouTube account called Archivist uploaded a trimmed cut of the exchange focused only on Musk and Roiland's reactions, which detached the moment from the longer Meme Review runtime and made it easier to share1.

Reaction posts hit Reddit within hours. A submission by Redditor Anything_butDat titled around Musk being an 'Absolute MadLad' for laughing at the dead deer pulled more than 28,500 upvotes in three days4. Edits pairing the clip with unrelated bleak headlines followed on Reddit and Twitter in the same window, and the still frame of Musk mid-laugh settled into rotation as a general-purpose reaction image for morbid news4.

How to Use This Meme

People typically use a screenshot or short GIF of Musk mid-laugh as a reaction to bleak, awkward, or genuinely dark news, especially when the poster wants to signal they find it grimly funny anyway. A common convention is to pair the image with a caption revealing the dark twist only in the second line, mirroring the beat where Roiland tells Musk the deer had drowned1.

Frequently Asked Questions