In 2018 a bunch of boys got trapped in a flooded cave in Thailand. It was a big story on Twitter, as people tried to figure out how to save those boys. Elon Musk weighed in that he had ordered SpaceX to repurpose a rocket into a boy-saving device that would traverse through the narrow tunnels, pick up a boy, and return to safety.
A British cave explorer said that nah, that’s not gonna work Elon - I’m gonna dive into the cave with extra oxygen and get the boys out. Elon got livid and called the cave explorer “Pedo guy” on account of him being British, into cave exploration, and living in Thailand. Cave explorer then proceeded to save the boys, and Elon was mad that he didn’t get to send space rockets into a narrow cave passage.
Yeah, exactly this. Musk managed to coast for a while on a “Tony Stark” image with the PR team’s assistance. Once that was gone, some of his hardcore fans surely stuck around, but people who had no emotional investment in his image were just like “oh, this guy sucks actually.”
After being called on it, he even hired a PI to try to find proof that the guy he randomly called a pedophile happened to be coincidentally a pedophile. He just had a dude investigated based on nothing to blindly hope his insult was somehow prescient.
Well, it wasn’t a rocket, it was at least not as crazy as that, it was some more vaguely credible looking mini-sub enclosure.
It was still stupid, as the diver explained manipulating a still-big, inflexible mini sub through the cave system was not going to work nearly as well as just having scuba gear.
Elon wanted to save the day and got all pissy that his idea was rightly called out as stupid, even if folks were willing to risk waiting for SpaceX to come save the day.
Wait, I don’t think think I heard about this one, what happened?
In 2018 a bunch of boys got trapped in a flooded cave in Thailand. It was a big story on Twitter, as people tried to figure out how to save those boys. Elon Musk weighed in that he had ordered SpaceX to repurpose a rocket into a boy-saving device that would traverse through the narrow tunnels, pick up a boy, and return to safety.
A British cave explorer said that nah, that’s not gonna work Elon - I’m gonna dive into the cave with extra oxygen and get the boys out. Elon got livid and called the cave explorer “Pedo guy” on account of him being British, into cave exploration, and living in Thailand. Cave explorer then proceeded to save the boys, and Elon was mad that he didn’t get to send space rockets into a narrow cave passage.
Oh my God. I’d heard the first part of this story, but not the second. Elon Musk really finds a new low every time I turn around.
It’s funny because a lot of people cite this exchange as the time when it finally clicked for them that Elon is a grifter.
Makes me wonder if Trump’s cult possess a similar invisible red line, or not?
It was the first time he was in the spotlight after he fired his PR team in 2017
Yeah, exactly this. Musk managed to coast for a while on a “Tony Stark” image with the PR team’s assistance. Once that was gone, some of his hardcore fans surely stuck around, but people who had no emotional investment in his image were just like “oh, this guy sucks actually.”
After being called on it, he even hired a PI to try to find proof that the guy he randomly called a pedophile happened to be coincidentally a pedophile. He just had a dude investigated based on nothing to blindly hope his insult was somehow prescient.
Wow. What, and I cannot stress this enough, the fuck.
Well, it wasn’t a rocket, it was at least not as crazy as that, it was some more vaguely credible looking mini-sub enclosure.
It was still stupid, as the diver explained manipulating a still-big, inflexible mini sub through the cave system was not going to work nearly as well as just having scuba gear.
Elon wanted to save the day and got all pissy that his idea was rightly called out as stupid, even if folks were willing to risk waiting for SpaceX to come save the day.
If I remember correctly the sub was supposed to be built from repurposed rocket parts?