What’s up with Elon Musk and The Onion?

It almost sounds like a story from the satirical news site The Onion: “In massive mistake, Elon Musk rides own Tesla to Mars thinking electric car’s battery will run for 70 million miles instead of just 300.”

Such headlines are, of course, jokes. But what apparently isn’t a joke is Musk’s affection for humor, The Onion and some of its senior staff members and editors. According to a report from the Daily Beast, Musk has hired half a dozen editors with ties to The Onion as part of a secret project that

may end up being a rival satirical humor site.

The Daily Beast said it “can confirm” that former Onion editor-in-chief Cole Bolton and executive editor Ben Berkley have been working on the Musk-financed project in Los Angeles since last year after the two left The Onion because of differences with its management team. After some time, this news organization’s request for a comment from Musk was returned. While Musk didn’t confirm that he has any Onion-style comedy website plans, he left the door open for the possibility of bringing some laughs to his line of business ventures. “It’s pretty obvious that comedy is the next frontier after electric vehicles, space exploration and brain-computer interfaces,” Musk said. “Don’t know how anyone’s not seeing this.”

The Daily Beast said “sources” confirmed that the former Onion editors have also recently lured three Onion writers and a longtime editor to join the project. Musk is known to be a

longtime fan of The Onion, and has referenced the site in some of his tweets. The Daily Beast also reported that Musk inquired about purchasing The Onion back in 2014.

The Onion, and two of its sister sites, Clickhole and A.V. Club, ended up being purchased by Univision in 2016. But, maybe it’s possible Musk might want some kind of revenge against The Onion? After all, it has occasionally poked goodhumored fun at Musk and his propensity for investing in projects many people would think impossible to complete.

— Rex Crum