Humor
My Day With Elon Musk
Was stranger than you might think
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I spent a day with Elon Musk. It was entirely out of the blue and not at all what I expected.
A week ago, I walked to my mailbox to get the latest round of political attack ads. As I took them to the recycling bin, I noticed an envelope with my name on it. No return address, just the letters ERM in gold leaf. I opened the envelope, and found these words written on a plain white card.
Mr. Starlin;
You may have noticed that Fake Elon Musk followed you on Medium. Fake Elon Musk is not fake. He’s me! As you can imagine, the use of subterfuge is often necessary when I go online. Otherwise, people will spend far too much time kissing up to me, hoping I’ll like their stories and tweets, and they will go viral. And since my “fake” Medium account isn’t about inventing, or business, or politics, or money, or writing, or self-help, it goes unnoticed. Like creative writing.
I have enjoyed reading several of your stories, especially the ones featuring donuts and space. I see no reason to explore space without the hope of discovering new types of donuts. In fact, the first business I have planned for Mars is Red Planet Donuts, a donut shop.
Anyway, I would like to invite you to spend the day with me. It is hard to make friends when you are a genius, as you are probably aware. So I often invite interesting people to spend the day with me. Rest assured, there will be donuts.
If you are interested, call my assistant to schedule a day.
There was a phone number printed below the text. I had never spent the day with a billionaire before, or even a millionaire. Only the occasional thousandaire. So I called and booked a day.
The morning of my Musk Day soon arrived. So did a Tesla. The door popped open. I waited for Elon, or someone, to get out, but nothing happened. I walked over to the car and looked inside. It was empty. A voice inside the car said, “Welcome, Mark. Please have a seat.”
“In the driver’s seat?” I asked.
“Of course. Although you will not be required to drive. I am fully capable of driving myself.”
