Duran Duran delete photo with Tesla Cybertruck after online backlash

Duran Duran’s Simon Le Bon and John Taylor came under fire this week for posting a photo of themselves next to a Tesla Cybertruck – which they swiftly deleted.

On Tuesday (May 21), the new wave legends posted the image on their Threads account, under the caption: “You’ll never forget your first Tesla Cybertruck”.

Before long, the post was coming in for criticism from Threads users, with an anti-Elon Musk theme that is common on the platform.

“Her name is Rio and she can’t drive in the sand,” read one reply, while another Threads user simply said: “A View to a Shill”.

Guys? They got Duran Duran! Guys? #Cybertruck pic.twitter.com/K4v2z09WgG

— Real_Moldy (@MoldyWarp) May 20, 2024

The post was deleted before long, and Katy Krassner, a representative of the band, took to Threads herself to note that the photo was taken in jest.

“They stood in front of a friend’s truck because they thought it was funny,” she said. “It wasn’t theirs. They didn’t get paid to post it. We certainly misjudged how strong the reaction would be.”

When Musk’s company first unveiled the Cybertruck model in 2019, fans of Back To The Future rushed online to compare it to Dr. Emmett L. Brown’s DeLorean from the film series.

Fans called the car everything from a “DeLorean on steroids” to the slightly less subtle description of if “a DeLorean got drunk and impregnated a Hummer in the Thunderdome.”

Duran Duran, meanwhile, are playing a range of major festivals this summer, including Latitude, Cruel World and the Montreux Jazz Festival.

There is another major stage the group would love to play too: the Glastonbury Pyramid. They spoke to NME last year about their hopes to play the festival for the first time, before frontman Simon Le Bon told the BBC that e wants to do it joined by Nile Rodgers and Mark Ronson.

“I want to play Glastonbury,” he said. “I don’t want to go as a punter, but I want Duran Duran to get the right slot. Anyway, that’s the conversation that we shouldn’t really have on the air. I’d love to do it. I’d like a night-time slot, to be honest with you, and it’s got to be on the Pyramid Stage.”