Elon Musk: never boring

“Everybody around here has slides in their lobbies – I’m actually wondering about putting in a

Whatever you think of Musk, at least he’s not boring. Here are five times when the tech leader opened his mouth and we were surprised what came out.

“Nuke Mars.” That might sound surprising given Musk’s plans to move to the Red Planet, but his plan to warm it up and make it inhabitable is dropping thermonuclear bombs on each of its poles.

“There’s a billion-to-one chance we’re living in reality.”

base Musk made this particular proclamation back in 2016, but the idea that our world is a computer simulation has popped up time and time again from the Tesla boss, adding that he hopes it’s true as it means there will be other simulations running in case we wipe ourselves out. rollercoaster, Fremont.” like a functional rollercoaster at the factory in Sorry Google and the startups that copy it: your in-office slides pale in comparison to a rollercoaster, although so far Musk hasn’t actually built one.

“If we make life multiplanetary, there may come a day when some plants and Mars.” animals die out on Earth, but are still alive on This is the core of Musk’s argument about why we should colonise Mars: it gives humans a home if Earth fails. It’s nice he’s planning on bringing other aspects of our planet along with him, but we’d perhaps be better placed to protect the planet we’ve got rather than rely on his Mars cityscaping plans.

“The coronavirus panic is dumb.” Musk tweeted this back in May 2020, before the full scale of the crisis was clear, but he’s doubled down on it since – and eventually contracted coronavirus himself.