Ellen DeGeneres painting to be auctioned off as part of Elon Musk’s purge of Twitter offices

Now that Twitter is officially dead and X reigns supreme, owner Elon Musk is holding an auction to get rid of items from before his time – including a painting of Ellen Degeneres’s famed Oscars selfie.

The group selfie taken during DeGeneres’ gig hosting the 2014 Oscars was named one of Time Magazine‘s 100 Most Influential Images of All Time, along with the moon landing and Dorothea Lange’s famous migrant mother.

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Taken by Bradley Cooper, the photo was retweeted over 3 million times since it was taken live at the awards show and includes Ellen along with movie stars Channing Tatum, Meryl Streep, Kevin Spacey, Jennifer Lawrence, Julia Roberts, Jared Leto, Brad Pitt, Bradley Cooper, Angelina Jolie, Lupita Nyong’o and her brother Peter.

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And a painting of said photo was once hanging in the Twitter offices. But with Elon Musk at the helm, the iconic painting seems to represent a Twitter of the past and has got to go.

Available items in addition to the painting include @ and # statues, a bird cage with the Twitter logo on it, and even run-of-the-mill office items like chairs, desks, and coffee makers. Photos of the available items – including the Oscars painting – can be viewed here.

The auction opens in San Francisco on September 12 and is run by Heritage Global Partners. It will last for two days and interested buyers must make an appointment to view the 584 items for sale. The opening bid of every item is reportedly $25.

Musk’s takeover of the website formerly known as Twitter has been marked with endless controversy, with many saying he is running the sit into the ground. Upon taking the helm, Musk laid off massive amounts of employees, changed the famed ‘blue check’ program, and now, has changed the site’s iconic name.

His takeover of the site has also been bad for LGBTQ+ people. In March, a study found that the site saw a dramatic increase in anti-LGBTQ+ tweets since Musk took over – and that the company is making millions from those tweets.

In April, the site quietly removed a line in its “Hateful Conduct” policy that protected transgender people from online abuse.

And in June, Musk let it be known that he regards the terms “cis” and “cisgender” as slurs.

Musk has a long history of spreading transphobic rhetoric, and when he purchased the social media behemoth, trans people were immediately worried about the effects it would have on them. Musk has tweeted that doctors or parents who support gender-affirming care for kids “should go to prison for life.”

Musk also has a strained relationship with his trans daughter, Vivian, who filed court papers last year to legally change her gender and her last name because, in her words, she no longer wished “to be related to my biological father in any way, shape or form.”

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