Tesla CEO Elon Musk, weeks after the Securities and Exchange Commission asked a judge to hold him in contempt, has dropped a surprise rap single.
Musk tweeted a link to the song, “RIP Harambe,” dedicated to the 17-year-old gorilla who was shot by a Cincinnati Zoo worker in 2016 after grabbing a 3-year-old boy who fell into his enclosure.
“RIP Harambe/Sipping on some Bombay/We on our way to heaven/Amen, Amen,” Musk sings on the autotoned track. “RIP Harambe/Smoking on some strong (hey)/In the gorilla zoo/And we thinking about you.”
He released the track on SoundCloud under the label “Emo G Records.”
“I’m disappointed that my record label failed,” Musk tweeted.
“RIP Harambe” was played over 168,000 times in the first day.
{mosads}The unexpected song comes after a tumultuous year for the 47-year-old CEO of Tesla and SpaceX. Last month, the SEC asked a judge to hold Musk in contempt over an “inaccurate” Feb. 19 tweet about the number of cars Tesla planned to produce in 2019.
Last year, the agency brought fraud charges against him for tweeting that he planned to take Tesla private at $420 a share, which he later said was a joke about marijuana. Musk was forced to step down as chairman of Tesla following those charges, and he and the company were fined $20 million each. The next month, Musk made headlines again for smoking weed during a podcast with comedian Joe Rogan.
In addition, a British diver involved in the rescue effort for the Thai soccer team trapped in a cave last year filed a lawsuit against Musk for calling him a “pedo guy” on Twitter.