(Torrance, California) The eyes of a nervous and uncertain nation turned towards the West this week, as self-made billionaire, Elon Musk, took to the Internet to express his frustration with his state government’s lockdown orders, to preserve human life and avoid overwhelming local medical providers.
Mr. Musk tweeted that the stay-at-home order was “fascist”, and the government needed to, “...give the people their goddamn freedom back”. Since his outburst made it clear he had taken some down time to teach himself advanced epidemiology and political philosophy, we requested, and were surprisingly granted, an interview to learn more about the motivation behind what he had written.
Elon was blunt, “Look. I invented PayPal and have an immeasurable number of patents tied to my car and space exploration companies, so it’s safe to say understanding the science behind infectious diseases wasn’t much of a stretch. I watched a couple of YouTube videos and followed some Reddit feeds until I realized I probably knew more than that Fauci hack everybody likes. His decades of experience and expertise on infectious diseases can’t fool me from seeing the connection between Governor Newsom’s hidden agenda to exercise tyranny and fascism to make the California citizens bow before him in total obedience.”
Then, in a rare ego-free moment, Elon paused for questions while he took a deep drag from a four-foot bong called “Excalibur”. We asked, “How does applying some government oversight in the interest of preserving public health connect to an ultra-nationalist political movement? One is a public policy or guidance that is about ensuring public safety like speed limits, consumer safety oversight for manufacturing, or even maximum building capacities. I mean, nobody shouts about ‘freedom’ when they are denied access to a theater because they are the 501st attendee to a place that only allows 500 in because of fire safety. And the ‘fascism’ thing - what’s the reasoning there? It’s not like we rounded up Japanese Americans in internment camps or denied port to a ship full of Jewish people escaping Nazi Germany in the 1940s. People under the stay at home order are free to do life-essential things as long as they follow certain protective guidelines...how is that fascism?”
Mr. Musk was clearly shaken from the tone of the questioning and quietly regrouped. “Look,” he said in a much lower and almost inaudible voice, “My tweet was actually more about me than anything else. Sure, I have 21 million followers on that platform who absorb my every word, but what they don’t know is I am really missing being able to crank the vise and increase the daily pain by forcing my employees to work in pretty demeaning and mentally abusive environments. Jeff Bezos and I have a behind-the-scenes bet, for a Coke, on how terrible we can make our working environments before an employee commits suicide from sheer hopelessness. Both of us are great at really making the people who power our businesses feel inhuman. I belittle and remind Tesla and SpaceX engineers and workers all the time they are lucky to even be employed by me. Jeff is great because he has people right now working in soulless warehouses that squash any hope of being human by hinting they could be replaced at any moment with an out-of-work satire writer or a robot. The problem is, Jeff's people are considered essential, and mine are not. He can continue to abuse them, while mine are safe at home. I am not losing a Coke to that man!"
Elon took a thoughtful pause, shook his head, and returned to his old self. He quickly finished, “This interview is over and your questions have been addressed. Should you need any followup from our conversation, you may contact my new PR spokesperson - Patrick Barnum. Don’t forget we’re colonizing Mars! Soon!”
