Elon Musk suggests changes to English grammar rules on X
What's the story
Billionaire Elon Musk has taken to X to suggest changes to the rules of English grammar. The Tesla and SpaceX CEO highlighted that punctuation should be more readable, specifically calling for spaces between em dashes. His suggestion came after an X user pointed out how the fictional Culture civilization in Iain M Banks's sci-fi novels overcomes envy through shared experiences enabled by advanced computing power.
Punctuation debate
Musk's critique of em dashes
Musk's critique focused more on the writing style of the original tweet than the actual argument.
He argued, "The rules of English need to change to put spaces between the em dashes, as they presently too much resemble a hyphenated word, rather than a parenthetical phrase."
"Also, '—' is an unpleasantly long a line. The en dash, '-', is a better length."
Twitter Post
See Musk's post here
(The rules of English need to change to put spaces between the em dashes, as they
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk)presently too much resemble a hyphenated word, rather thana parenthetical phrase. Also, “—“ is an unpleasantlylong a line. The en dash, “–“, is a better length.)November 6, 2026
Political context
Musk deleting posts urging Americans to vote Republican?
Musk's punctuation debate lands at a politically sensitive time: he appears to be quietly deleting his posts urging Americans to vote Republican.
The move follows major losses for the party in the US midterm elections.
One of the deleted posts was a pinned message from October 29, where Musk had urged Americans to vote for Republican senators.