• Elmo posted to LinkedIn to announce his firing 
  • It follows Trump’s decision to scrap education grant 
  • “Elmo loved his time at Sesame Street. Elmo is going to miss his friends”
According to his LinkedIn post, Elmo was laid off from Sesame Street
According to his LinkedIn post, Elmo was laid off from Sesame Street Credit: Imago

Elmo sad. Elmo got fired. Or did he?

A LinkedIn post from Sesame Street’s beloved red muppet appeared on the site announcing he had been  “laid off” from the show.

Read more: Did Popeyes Produce The Best Post About The New Pope?

The shocking news came following President Trump’s decision to axe the Ready to Learn education grant, which has long been used to fund PBS Kids programming.

Read more: Woman compared to Darth Vader at work wins £30K

The since-deleted post, which is still doing the rounds on social media, opened with Elmo writing “Hi LinkedIn. Unfortunately Elmo was recently laid off because of the federal budget cuts”.

Elmo worked on Sesame Street for 45 years

Elmo first appeared on Sesame Street in 1980 as a background character, and by 1984 established himself as one of the most prominent and loved personalities on show.

Over the course of the fuzzy Muppet’s career, he has sung with the likes of megastars Beyoncé and Bruno Mars, and even hosted his own segment on the show called Elmo’s World. 

Thanks to his viral moments and late-night talk show appearances, Elmo became a celebrity in his own right.

It comes as no surprise, then, that Elmo was rocked by his firing. In the LinkedIn post, he added: “Elmo loved his time at Sesame Street. Elmo is going to miss his friends Big Bird, Cookie Monster, Ernie, Bert, Abby, Grover, Count, and so many more. They made Elmo’s day so much better.”

The muppet is already touting himself for new opportunities noting he is good at “giving hugs” and is “open to full-time or freelance roles”.

Wait, was he really fired?

Although the LinkedIn post was written entirely in Elmo’s famously childlike third-person voice, it was, in fact, fake. 

The post was actually a clever plea urging people to contact Congress and help save public broadcasting. It was a smart and playful way to draw attention to the Department of Education programme being scrapped by Trump’s administration.

Madi Biedermann, deputy assistant secretary for communications at the DOE, defended the cuts, saying the grants had been funding “racial justice educational programming for five to eight- year-old children”, which she claimed was “not aligned with administration priorities”.

She added, “The Trump Department of Education will prioritise funding that supports meaningful learning and improving student outcomes, not divisive ideologies and woke propaganda.”

The decision has sparked backlash from teachers and parents, who say the cuts will hit vulnerable kids the hardest, especially those who rely on free, quality shows to learn and develop.

Sara DeWitt, senior vice president and general manager of PBS Kids, has hit back saying the move from Trump “will have an immediate and profound impact on the service PBS provides to families and children across America… we will continue to fight in order to maintain our essential service.”

Elmo, thankfully, is still very much employed. The little red Muppet continues to be tickled, remaining a giggling symbol of the accessible learning that advocates are fighting to protect.