You're paying a premium to symbolically consume the rich.
MSCHF operates ice cream trucks in NYC and LA selling $10 popsicles with billionaire faces, with Musk pops outselling others despite the provocative concept. The campaign references Jean-Jacques Rousseau's revolutionary phrase and uses minimal explanation, letting the visual pun speak for itself about wealth disparity.
- MSCHF sold $10 popsicles featuring Musk, Bezos, Zuckerberg, Gates, and Jack Ma in NYC and LA
- Musk popsicles outsold all others; the vendor moved five boxes of 24 each
- Musk's net worth was printed on the wrapper: $264.6 billion
- The campaign referenced Jean-Jacques Rousseau's phrase about eating the rich
- Greenberg refused to provide political explanation beyond the slogan itself
NYC artist group MSCHF sells novelty popsicles depicting billionaires like Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos with bites taken out, promoting the slogan 'Eat the Rich' as social commentary on wealth inequality.
On a sweltering New York summer, an artist collective called MSCHF parked ice cream trucks on the city's busiest corners and began selling something unusual: popsicles shaped and painted to look like the world's richest men, each one bearing a bite mark. Elon Musk's head was chocolate-flavored with mint-green chiclet eyes. Jeff Bezos came in strawberry. Bill Gates tasted like vanilla. The wrapper on each one read the same thing: "Eat the Rich."
The trucks started rolling in Brooklyn on a Monday in mid-July 2022, then moved to Manhattan's Columbus Circle on Broadway and Washington Square Park. A second fleet worked the streets of Los Angeles. The popsicles cost ten dollars each—expensive even by New York standards—and the collective offered no manifesto, no political statement, no explanation beyond the slogan itself. The website showed only images of the billionaires with bites taken from their heads, logos of their companies printed on the wrapper, and the phrase that had become a rallying cry for younger generations of activists.
The slogan draws from a line often attributed to Jean-Jacques Rousseau: "When the people have nothing left to eat, they will eat the rich." It has echoed through protest movements for decades, but MSCHF's version arrived not as a chant but as a joke you could hold in your hand and consume. Daniel Greenberg, the collective's cofounder, refused to elaborate. In terse email responses, he insisted the initiative simply highlighted "the relevant saying of eating the rich" and that this was the message in full. He called the ten-dollar price "arbitrary."
Pedestrians stopped and stared. Some laughed. Some took photographs. The braver ones bought a popsicle. The vendor working the truck claimed to know nothing about the project's deeper intent, but he had data: Musk's popsicles were outselling all the others. He'd moved five boxes of twenty-four each—one hundred twenty Elon Musk heads, gone. Bezos came second. Then Zuckerberg, Gates, and Jack Ma, the Alibaba founder, trailing behind. One buyer approached the truck with friends and declared that Musk was the obvious choice. "Elon Musk is number one, everyone knows him," he said before taking a bite.
The wrapper told you what you were consuming: Musk's net worth, printed on the stick, was listed as $264.6 billion. On the reverse side, the same instruction appeared again. "Eat the Rich." The popsicles melted in the heat. People bought them, ate them, and moved on. What remained was the image—the billionaire's face disappearing into someone's mouth—and the question of whether satire that costs ten dollars and requires no thought to understand actually says anything at all about the inequality it mocks.
Notable Quotes
Elon Musk is number one, everyone knows him— A buyer at the ice cream truck
The initiative simply highlights the relevant saying of eating the rich, and that is the message— Daniel Greenberg, MSCHF cofounder, via email
The Hearth Conversation Another angle on the story
Why did they choose these five specific billionaires? Was there a logic to it?
The source doesn't say. Musk, Bezos, Zuckerberg, Gates, Ma—they're the most recognizable names in tech and e-commerce. The vendor said Musk outsold everyone else because "everyone knows him." It's not ideology; it's brand recognition.
And the price—ten dollars for a popsicle. That seems deliberately provocative.
Greenberg called it arbitrary, which is a non-answer. But there's something there: you're paying a premium to symbolically consume the rich. The irony isn't subtle. You're enriching the artists while eating the billionaires.
Did anyone actually engage with the political message, or was it just novelty?
The source suggests mostly novelty. People smiled, took photos, bought them. The website had no manifesto, no explanation. Greenberg refused to elaborate. It's possible that was intentional—let the image do the work. Or it's possible the whole thing was designed to be consumed and forgotten, which is its own kind of statement.
What about the Rousseau quote—did people recognize it?
The source doesn't say anyone mentioned it. The slogan is presented as something younger generations use, but there's no evidence anyone at the truck knew where it came from or what it originally meant. It's just a phrase now, detached from its history.
So what actually happened here? Did this change anything?
It didn't. People bought popsicles. The trucks moved to the next location. The billionaires' net worth didn't change. But the image—the bite mark, the melting face—that stuck with people. Whether that's art or just marketing is the real question.