Jimmy Kimmel has taken aim at Elon Musk over his attacks on Christopher Nolan’s casting of Lupita Nyong’o in The Odyssey, telling the tech billionaire to “stay in his lane” during a pointed segment on his late-night show.
The row centres on Nolan’s decision to cast Nyong’o, 43, as Helen of Troy, the figure from Greek mythology whose legendary beauty sparked the Trojan War.
The Oscar-winning actress, who took home the Academy Award for 12 Years a Slave in 2013, will play both Helen and her sister Clytemnestra.
The backlash began when conservative commentator Matt Walsh posted on X arguing that nobody “on the planet” considers Nyong’o the world’s most beautiful woman, and accusing Nolan of making the casting choice out of fear of being labelled racist.
Musk responded with a single word: “True.”
He then went further, separately suggesting that Nolan’s motivation for the casting was awards eligibility, writing in response to another user: “He wants the awards.”
Musk was referring to Oscars diversity guidelines introduced in 2023 that require best picture nominees to meet certain representation criteria across cast and crew.
Kimmel addressed the controversy on his show by displaying Musk’s tweets, including one in which Musk labelled Nolan’s Odyssey a “desecration” and demanded to know who was responsible for the Academy’s diversity requirements, before flashing a photo of the Tesla Cybertruck on screen.
“Who specifically is the a**hole that thought this was a cool design for a truck?” Kimmel shot back.
Musk’s commentary didn’t stop at Nyong’o.
When false rumours circulated that trans actor Elliot Page would be playing Achilles, Musk called it “one of the dumbest and twisted things I’ve ever heard.”
It later emerged Page is actually playing Elpenor, a minor character who dies by falling off a roof while drunk and is later encountered in the underworld.
After the correction, Musk reposted a tweet denying the existence of Page’s masculinity.
Actor Alec Baldwin entered the debate on Instagram, posting a photo of Nyong’o with the message: “Dear Elon… but she IS the most beautiful woman in the world.”
Nolan’s The Odyssey, his first film since the best picture-winning Oppenheimer, boasts one of the most starry casts in recent memory.
Matt Damon plays Odysseus, Anne Hathaway his wife Penelope, Tom Holland their son Telemachus, and Zendaya the goddess Athena.
Robert Pattinson, Charlize Theron, Jon Bernthal, Mia Goth and rapper Travis Scott are also among the cast. The film opens in US cinemas on 17 July.
