‘How’s it going, Trump?’ Iran embassy uses Akshay Kumar meme to mock US President

Iran's embassy in Tunisia has brought Bollywood into the Iran-US standoff after sharing an Akshay Kumar meme aimed at US President Donald Trump. The post followed Iran's claim that its forces had captured an unmanned US underwater vessel near the Strait of Hormuz.

The Iranian embassy in Tunisia shared an image featuring Akshay Kumar from the 2011 Bollywood comedy Heyy Babyy on its official X account.

The meme carried the message: “Lost an underwater. Oil is nearing $100. Elections are coming. How’s it going, Trump?”

The post appeared to mock Trump by linking the alleged loss of the US underwater vessel with rising oil prices and approaching elections.

Rather than issuing a conventional diplomatic statement, the embassy used a widely recognised Bollywood meme format to deliver its message.

What does Iran claim happened?

The meme came after Iran said its Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps had captured an unmanned US underwater vessel near the entrance to the Strait of Hormuz on September 8.

The IRGC described the operation as a complex intelligence and operational action and released photographs and video that it said showed the captured vessel.

The Strait of Hormuz is a strategically important waterway connecting the Persian Gulf with the Gulf of Oman. Any escalation in the area can attract significant international attention because of the importance of the route to global energy supplies.

What does the US say?

The United States offered a different account of the incident.

According to the report, US officials said the underwater drone was an older model that had malfunctioned during operations.

The competing accounts mean the precise circumstances surrounding the vessel remain disputed.

The reference to oil prices appears to connect the incident with concerns about energy markets and the strategic importance of the Strait of Hormuz.

The meme also referred to elections, adding a political dimension to the message directed at Trump.

The post therefore combined three themes — the reported underwater-drone incident, oil prices and US domestic politics — into a deliberately mocking social-media message.

Why Akshay Kumar?

The use of Akshay Kumar's image added an unexpected Indian pop-culture element to an otherwise serious geopolitical confrontation.

The image came from Heyy Babyy, a 2011 Hindi comedy starring Akshay Kumar, Riteish Deshmukh and Fardeen Khan.

The familiar expression used in the meme helped turn the embassy's political message into a format that was immediately recognisable to Indian social-media users.

How did Indian users react?

The post attracted attention from Indian users because of its use of an Indian film star.

Some users praised the meme, with one calling it a “banger”. Another referred to Akshay Kumar as a “meme lord for a reason”.

Others were less enthusiastic about the embassy using the image, with one user arguing that the meme should belong to the “Iran in India” social-media account.

The post is notable less for its meme format than for the way official diplomatic accounts increasingly use social media to communicate political messages.

An embassy using a Bollywood image allows a geopolitical message to travel beyond conventional diplomatic audiences and into online communities that may otherwise pay little attention to statements about the Strait of Hormuz.

At the same time, the underlying incident remains serious. Iran and the US have presented different accounts of what happened to the underwater vessel, while the Strait of Hormuz remains strategically important to global energy markets.

The meme should therefore be viewed as a political communication tactic rather than independent evidence confirming Iran's account of the incident.