Reuters / Stefan Wermuth
The left-wing Labour leader told the audience: "If you told me two years ago I would be addressing the captains of industry at the CBI conference, I don't know who would be more shocked, you or me."
The speech was designed as a grandstanding policy pitch - a call for a "fourth industrial revolution" which would harness new technologies and use the internet to drive wealth creation.
Not for the first time, however, the story quickly became less about the message and more about its "strange" delivery, after Corbyn's team posted this message on Twitter:
We now face the task of creating a New Britain from the fourth industrial revolution #CBI2016 pic.twitter.com/EBGG6z3KaK
- Jeremy Corbyn MP (@jeremycorbyn) November 21, 2016
Internet users appeared confused by the apparently "meaningless" phrases contained in the tweet, and one Twitter user who said he had worked in tech for 20 years tweeted that "there is not a single word of this that makes sense."
Actor Robert Webb, a longtime Labour supporter and Corbyn critic, tweeted that "Communication matters. Smith had it, Blair had it, Brown didn't have enough of it, Miliband didn't have any of it, and Corbyn doesn't want it."
It wasn't long before internet users began reacting with their own versions of Corbyn's post. Here is a selection of the funniest:
1. Writer David Llewellyn was the first to repurpose Corbyn's tweet:
A powerful message from Jeremy Corbyn. pic.twitter.com/SKOLayQuNJ
- David Llewellyn (@TheDaiLlew) November 21, 2016
2. Others quickly followed:
Think I've got the hang of this now, @UKLabour @jeremycorbyn pic.twitter.com/L7EiFUbuWT
- Le Chat Innocent (@LeChatInnocent) November 21, 2016
3. Twitter user @hrtbps posted three re-imagined images:
I fixed those Corbyn quotes to make them more understandable. pic.twitter.com/Fhik0St2dJ
- hrtbps (@hrtbps) November 21, 2016
4. Author Jeremy Duns channeled the famous monologue from Ridley Scott's Bladerunner:
Stirring stuff from Jeremy Corbyn. pic.twitter.com/axdUMP365B
- Jeremy Duns (@jeremyduns) November 21, 2016
5. But one exasperated Twitter user saw a silver lining in Corbyn's message.
Unlike many Corbyn statements, this one won't lose Labour any more support because no-one knows what it means. https://t.co/9naG9HEaYd
- #SavingLabour (@saving_labour) November 22, 2016