Yesterday I was thinking about how improbable Elon Musk is. It is pretty mind boggling to consider all the things he is accomplishing and I really don’t think there is anyone in history we could compare him to. That’s just considering what he has accomplished to date. He’s obviously not done yet.
Not only did he single-handedly make EVs mainstream, he pioneered semi-autonomous driving, put NASA out of business, created a worldwide internet service, is on a viable path to human Mars habitation, created a brain implant, is expanding into humanoid robots, and as an apparent side quest, salvaged free speech (for the most part) in the Western Hemisphere and got his preferred candidate re-elected as US President.
How is all of this done by one man?
As I thought about it, I came up with a list of possibilities to explain his existence and at family dinner, we went over the options. Just for fun, here they are:
Elf/Maia/Vala Reborn As Man
Of course I have to start w this one. And I’ll acknowledge Bill recently suggested Elon could be Cirdan reborn given they are both connected with ships. That’s as good a guess as I can come up. There are surely other candidates, but regardless, the theory here is that someone angelic agreed to condescend in human form. Potential plot twist: he’s angelic, but not a *good* angel.
Time Traveler
In this theory, something has gone terribly wrong in the future and Elon Musk identified this era as the inflection point. He’s come back to prevent a huge problem. Of course, you’d have to account for his childhood I suppose, unless we say his childhood was made up. Or that he sent back his consciousness into a child from our time period.
The Main Character
In this theory, we live in a simulation and Elon is the main character which accounts for his uncanny ability to “win” at pretty much everything. That makes us very advanced NPCs since I’m assuming all of you, like me, actually live lives independent of Elon’s life. So we either came into this game with him or the game crafted us using very advanced code and when Elon is done playing, we’ll simply cease to exist. This is a fun theory for Elon personally but potentially very depressing for all of us. Who wants to be an NPC??
Zygote Lottery
In this theory there is no special magic. Elon is just a truly one of a kind individual. The right sperm hit the right egg and it happened during an era when he could succeed, meaning, not die young of the flu or not live during an era when a brain like that would be wasted. This one’s no fun, though, so let’s just pretend it’s not a possibility.
CIA Asset
In this theory, Elon is mostly a fraud and is really just a public front for the work of many other people. He gets to act like he’s really this smart and capable but in truth all of his ventures are directed by multiple people who work behind the scenes. He wins b/c the CIA wills it so for their own purposes. Money and fame flow to him as long as he plays by their rules but if he were to stop, he’d either be silenced or fall victim to some scandal and another puppet would take his place.
Alien
If aliens wanted to help humanity level up, probably the best way to do that is by posing as a human. That way you avoid dealing with the upheaval that would come from just showing up one day like we often see in alien movies. I mean no matter how they show up, it would cause pandemonium the world over, not to mention completely upend all religious, political, and social structures currently in place. You can avoid all of that by simply posing as a human.
Oddly enough, I just now discovered that Elon is on record saying “I am an alien. Yeah, I keep saying I’m an alien, but nobody believes me.” Of course, everyone assumes this is just a joke, but maybe not. And even more oddly (to me) is that when I went to Google “elon alien” my browser first showed me this image when I opened a new tab (before I searched that phrase):
That is of course a lizard person, which is a common reference to hostile aliens who pose as humans. But personally I like this concept better:
Bonus Theory: One of the 3 Disciples
I didn’t pose this theory at dinner last night but riffing on Elon’s claim that he is an alien, I’ll say maybe he’s one of the 3 Disciples at Bountiful who can change his appearance to blend in with humanity. I think that would qualify as an alien — someone not of this world, really.
The Votes Are In
My family likes the time traveler theory the most. It’s the most fun in their view. Not the most likely, however. For that designation they pretty universally chose the “zygote lottery” theory. For me I’m going with CIA Asset as the most likely theory and a blend of alien/elf/3 disciple as the most fun. Those 3 theories all intersect pretty well so I think they might be pointing to essentially the same thing: Elon is the ultimate “one of these is not like the others”.
Any other theories? Feel free to chime in.
William James Tychonievich
The time travel theory would explain how he got himself mentioned in a 1949 sci-fi novel by Wernher von Braun:
“The Martian government was directed by ten men, the leader of whom was elected by universal suffrage for five years and entitled ‘Elon.’ Two houses of Parliament enacted the laws to be administered by the Elon and his cabinet.”
LEE
There’s another Elon quote where he says “I was born in Africa, which is a strange spawn point…” which sounds like evidence for the Main Character theory. Sounds like we can choose our own adventure here!