Elon Musk has been having an interesting summer. We’re going to attempt to summarize just part of what Elon Musk has been up to lately, with a smattering of Twitter jokes along the way. We apologize if this all seems a bit convoluted, but this whole kerfuffle is convoluted. And hilarious.
The flamethrower-selling Tesla and SpaceX founder and former (?) boyfriend of Grimes tried to assist with the Thai cave rescue back in early July, but ultimately a team of cave divers rescued the kids without Elon’s heavily-lampooned submarine. For some reason known only to Musk, he then called one of the rescuers, Vernon Unsworth, a “pedo” in a July 15th tweet and then later doubled down. Then, in early September, Musk told Ryan Mac at BuzzFeed News that he “hopes” Unsworth sues him. Shortly after that, he smoked a blunt with Joe Rogan during a live interview.
Well, smoke ’em if you got ’em, Elon, because Unsworth has finally gotten around to filing that defamation lawsuit. Reuters reports Unsworth, who lives north of London, has filed suits in the U.S. District Court in Los Angeles and the High Court of London for reputational damage. He’s seeking at least $75,000 in compensation, which honestly seems kind of low for being falsely accused of being a pedophile who married a nonexistent 12 year old in Thailand.
But this wasn’t the only Elon Musk news that broke on Monday. Musk also announced he’s sending eight people to the frikken moon. What a time to be alive.
And now for the jokes, because a long-gestating story like this calls for months of snark, lovingly collected for your amusement.
The jokes about Musk’s rescue submarine continued long after our first round-up of jokes in July:
Pretty high odds that the Musk pedo tweet will become the most expensive tweet ever posted to this website.
People say this website is free, but not when you use it like that.
— Respectable Lawyer (@RespectableLaw) July 15, 2018
Congratulations to Elon Musk on joining the club of famous people whose behaviour gets described as “increasingly erratic” in news articles
— pixelatedboat aka “mr tweets” (@pixelatedboat) July 15, 2018
https://twitter.com/goldengateblond/status/1018560253368008704
https://twitter.com/boring_as_heck/status/1018534489251704834
ELON MUSK: *cracks knuckles* time to solve the world’s problems
ME: maybe you could give your money to smart people who know what they’re doing
ELON MUSK: *sets fire to enormous pile of $100 bills*
ME: what
ELON MUSK: *inhales deeply* shh I’m thinking— Dr. Bucky Isotope, Astrologist, IQ 188 (@BuckyIsotope) July 14, 2018
Tired of useless Internet trolls whining about Elon Musk for trying to help out. Unless you also made an unusable toy submarine and called the actual rescue divers doing the work pedophiles, then you're in no position to criticize Mr. Musk.
— Wild Geerters (@steinkobbe) July 15, 2018
Ironic that his company is called Tesla when he totally is an Edison.
— ⚖️Full Fledged Superhero Eisu⚖️Virtual🎨Palette (@Eisues) July 15, 2018
Elon Musk – "waiter, my soup has robots in it"
Waiter – "oh my…sir I am so sorry let me…"
E.M – "introducing soup robots, the robots…that are in soup for some reason"— Fred Delicious 🍆 (@Fred_Delicious) July 14, 2018
We’re a few hours away from Elon Musk being the first billionaire to post a notes app screenshot apology
— pixelatedboat aka “mr tweets” (@pixelatedboat) July 16, 2018
https://twitter.com/ldrinkh20/status/1018538881334042624
I know we’re all hating on Elon Musk but can we not appreciate his absolute ingenuity in being able to make himself the villain in the Cave Boys story
— jump aside (@JodiesJumpsuit) July 15, 2018
there’s only one way Elon Musk can redeem himself and that’s by giving me a lot of money
— Brandy Jensen (@BrandyLJensen) July 14, 2018
There’s not a Tesla in the world that’s as fun as cyber bullying Elon Musk.
— Aaron Fullerton (@AaronFullerton) July 15, 2018
What's cool about Elon Musk is that he's like a real life Tony Stark. In fact, this scene from Iron Man is almost eerie in how much it resembles him. pic.twitter.com/YqXekK3b7Y
— Existential Comics (find me on bluesky) (@existentialcoms) July 16, 2018
And today is the day Elon Musk began working on a time machine.
— Tim Siedell (@badbanana) July 15, 2018
But perhaps…
https://twitter.com/bourgeoisalien/status/1018545974162182144
Later that month, on July 17th, Musk posted a not-quite-apology for calling Mr. Unsworth a “pedo guy”:
As this well-written article suggests, my words were spoken in anger after Mr. Unsworth said several untruths & suggested I engage in a sexual act with the mini-sub, which had been built as an act of kindness & according to specifications from the dive team leader.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 18, 2018
And that kicked off another slew of jokes:
“Yes I told my 22 million followers he was a pedophile, but in my defense he was rude about my submarine” https://t.co/mgnYzkeybg
— pixelatedboat aka “mr tweets” (@pixelatedboat) July 18, 2018
https://twitter.com/pattymo/status/1019595765885427715
Elon Musk seems intent on proving he could have rescued that soccer team by digging a huge hole for himself. https://t.co/h0zWmJcc6e
— Crutnacker (@Crutnacker) July 18, 2018
now i've seen everything pic.twitter.com/ofQJhXDRuy
— Katie Notopoulos (@katienotopoulos) July 18, 2018
More that a month later, on August 28th, Musk seemed intent on reminding us of the stabbing victim who said, “What are you going to do, stab me?”
You don’t think it’s strange he hasn’t sued me? He was offered free legal services. And you call yourself @yoda …
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) August 28, 2018
Between that foreshadowing tweet and Musk’s correspondence with Buzzfeed, Unsworth had plenty of fodder for a lawsuit and other people had fodder for more jokes:
Everyone has their white whale, Elon Musk's just happens to be [squints] proving a literal hero to be a pedophilehttps://t.co/Wj4D8H0Bcs
— Ken Klippenstein (@kenklippenstein) September 4, 2018
He’s gonna do it. He’s gonna blow his entire fortune and business empire because he got into weed and cartoons in his 40s and can’t stop shitposting. Maximum respect https://t.co/zTz3ZTWVKc
— Kieran Morris (@kf_morris) September 4, 2018
“it’s fucked up that harambe never got to hear despacito” pic.twitter.com/t7tTFYlylI
— dan mentos (@DanMentos) September 11, 2018
https://twitter.com/jackallisonLOL/status/1038423750427914240
https://twitter.com/markleggett/status/1037288331330039808
Elon Musk getting himself very publicly sued for being too online is actually extremely funny.
— FILE NOT FOUND (@NotE0157H7) September 18, 2018
https://twitter.com/crushingbort/status/1041761695906050049
congrats @elonmusk pic.twitter.com/zxgR8odXxY
— 🕳⚰️💨 (@JNCO_official) September 17, 2018
Why does @elonmusk look like he's trying to find the maniac? pic.twitter.com/JQA3z97h63
— Aidan Nolan (@aidan_n_) September 17, 2018
https://twitter.com/KiwiEV/status/1041697017423179778
And then, on Monday, Musk announced his intent to send eight people to the moon, including billionaire Yusaku Maezawa:
BREAKING: Elon Musk’s space transportation company, SpaceX, names Japanese billionaire Yusaku Maezawa, founder of the nation’s largest online fashion mall, as the first private passenger to take a trip around the moon aboard its forthcoming Big Falcon Rocket spaceship.
— The Japan Times (@japantimes) September 18, 2018
The joking continued:
https://twitter.com/jrhennessy/status/1041869398804377600
https://twitter.com/dannolan/status/1041895543306256385
For better or worse, Elon Musk is the 21st century’s Howard Hughes.
— Jon Ostrower (@jonostrower) September 18, 2018
Elon Musk: Sue me?
… But I own rocket ships
… Can I be sued in space?
*shrugs* no, starships were meant to fly pic.twitter.com/LGsCpi2MPN
— Matt Lipton (@mattliptoncomic) September 18, 2018
And let’s check in on Elon Musk via his Twitter account:
Hanging out with @yousuck2020 before the @SpaceX moon mission announcement pic.twitter.com/RTOwutzMtG
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) September 18, 2018
Yeah, he’ll probably be fine.