What About Recyclops?
Elon Musk tweeted about air pollution statistics and bonus hospital-operating-room-grade filters in all Tesla cars on Friday afternoon. Soon the full scope of Rainn Wilson’s inspiration to the Tesla CEO came into view.
? https://t.co/n9aJXVfRtP
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 17, 2019
Musk followed that one up with another tweet saying:
“This is why we put extra filters in all Tesla cars. S & X even have hospital operating room grade HEPA filters.”
Musk was clearly very serious about his air-pollution tweet. Could it be, however, that Elon Musk himself is the real-life Recyclops, a robot sent to earth from another planet with a single-minded focus to clean up the environment and end pollution forever by doing robot stuff?
Or perhaps he sees himself that way and draws inspiration from Dwight Schrute’s character to find his inhuman level of endurance to work a demanding, round-the-clock schedule to advance alternative energy through engineering and industrial planning?
Jim Halpert ends the segment saying:
“God bless you Recyclops, and your cold robot heart.”
A cold robot such as Musk might have felt like that was a message just for him.
The Leaf Blower Incident
Last month, Musk got caught on Twitter sharing Wilson’s idea for a quiet electric leaf blower without giving credit.
C’mon Musk, give me some credit. @elonmusk pic.twitter.com/dAMXd97qiH
— RainnWilson (@rainnwilson) April 24, 2019
When he was called out on it, Elon Musk gave the cold shoulder to “The Office” star, insisting on Twitter:
“It’s been suggested by many, externally & internally.”
This incident gave reason to suspect that world-renowned engineer-CEO Elon Musk might have been taking credit for a television actor’s product idea. To be fair to Mr. Musk however, it is certainly possible that he didn’t see Rainn Wilson’s tweet, and that someone else had suggested the quiet electric leaf blower to him first.
But the tweet did get an awful lot of likes.
Did Elon Musk File Tesla’s IPO Because of The Office?
This Office episode may even be where Elon Musk stole his idea to time Tesla’s IPO filing with the SEC for January 2010, hardly a month after the episode of The Office with Recyclops aired. The name of that episode? Shareholder Meeting.
These are some awfully big coincidences of timing. They are especially so in light of Rainn Wilson’s tweet with the quiet electric leaf blower idea last month.
After “Shareholder Meeting” aired on November 19, 2009, Elon Musk could have easily been inspired by Dwight Schrute’s depiction of a world-saving environmentalist robot and hastened Tesla’s plans, pushing up the IPO to raise more cash.
Musk knew he would need the extra capital to speed along his plans for massive global environmental redemption. And maybe to expense his own high-end Recyclops suit.
The views expressed in the article are solely those of the author and do not represent those of, nor should they be attributed to, CCN.