Tech billionaire Elon Musk's admirers are numerous, vocal and loyal. Anyone who dares to criticize the Tesla boss does not have to wait long before a group of Musk fans outraged them with counter-arguments. With their defiant loyalty, the 51-year-old's supporters have already garnered some questionable notoriety. However, there is another fan base that is perhaps even more argumentative – and it is with this one that Musk has now taken on. We're talking about the "Swifties", the admirers of pop star Taylor Swift, 33.

Elon Musk shared a picture on Twitter of placing a photo of Taylor Swift next to that of movie character Napoleon Dynamite. "How can we be sure that these are different people?" he wrote cheekily. "Napoleon Dynamite" was a 2006 offbeat US comedy that has achieved cult status today. The film's protagonist is lanky, naïve teenager Napoleon Dynamite, played by Jon Heder. Probably nobody would ever have thought of comparing him to the attractive singer – but both have the narrow face and slightly pursed lips in common.

Musk must have realized relatively quickly that it was, shall we say, extremely daring to mess with the Swift fanbase. Because nobody is so cheeky to the superstar without immediately feeling the consequences. "You look like someone dropped you in a dumpster full of feet when you were a baby," was one of the more creative insults enraged Swifties countered. Musk probably didn't mean it badly, as he had previously shown himself to be an admirer of the musician. He also replied to one of the critical tweets with the idiosyncratic compliment: "Your talent for limbic resonance is unique."

The tweet quickly went viral and Musk probably realized that he had sent the wrong signal with the humorous comparison if he is a fan of the 33-year-old. And so he did something that doesn't happen too often: he deleted his own tweet. A surprisingly sane response for the confident tech billionaire.

Sources: Twitter, "Unilad"