SALT LAKE CITY—It all began when Elon Musk changed his avatar on Twitter to a picture of a giant sheep and edited his bio to say “absolūt unit.”
It wasn’t just any giant sheep, however — it was a picture from the archives of the Museum of English Rural Life that the museum shared in a viral tweet last year with the caption “look at this absolute unit.”
The museum’s social media team noticed that Musk co-opted their viral meme without giving them credit and called him out for it Twitter.
They then decided to have a little fun with it.
The social media team changed the museum's photo to an image of Musk and changed their Twitter handle to “The Muskuem of Elongish Rural Life” Wednesday.
Since then, they’ve posted several trolling tweets to get back at the Tesla CEO.
They’ve even begun receiving messages from social media users thinking they’re the real Elon Musk.
Twitter users across the world have been expressing their amusement at the exchange.
The Museum of English Rural Lifewebsite states that the museum “uses its diverse collections to explore how the skills and experiences of rural people, past and present, help shape our lives.”
The MERL has built a bit of a reputation for themselves on Twitter — last year the account started a war with other local museums to see who had the best duck photograph. They were also retweeted by J.K. Rowling last October for an image in their archives of a chicken in trousers that was drawn in 1784.
Musk has not yet responded to the museum’s tweets.