this post was submitted on 22 Oct 2024
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Iron man 1 came out and he had his PR team work around the clock to convince everyone he was the real life Tony Stark.
My pet theory is that Robert Downey Jr is the reason Elon musk is as successful as he is.
Considering RDJ's role as Tony Stark seems to have given Musk the template he used for his public rise to fame, you may be on to something.
it’s almost definitely the reason why Musk keeps making utterly cringe cameos in sci-fi shit, starting with Iron Man 2 and continuing on to Star Trek: Discovery and (of fucking course) Rick & Morty, and a bunch of other weird shit like the Saturday Night Live episode that was just propaganda. his former PR team very likely set up whatever price point worked for the studios so Musk could pay for a cameo, and Musk loved it so much he kept doing it after he fired that team.
what’s fucking bizarre is the Iron Man writers seem to swear their version of Tony Stark was based on Musk, and we know now Musk’s nothing like that. so looking back with more seasoned eyes: how much of the first Iron Man was just propaganda too? of course there’s all the libertarian shit — whose idea was all that, actually?
You want my suspicion, Marvel were probably taking their cues from the public image SpaceX/Tesla's marketing and/or Musk's PR team had put out about the guy - as an eccentric genius par excellence who'd save humanity from global warming and/or get us to Mars.
Tony Stark treats him like a Putz in Iron Man 2. Not sure that's what Musk was going for.
it’s really bizarre how obviously forced the propaganda is, looking back:
given how utterly, sickly-sweet positive his latter cameos are, Musk was probably pissed at his Iron Man 2 cameo and had a few new clauses written into his contract with the studios going forward. as for why the crew’s attitude toward Musk seemed to change between the first and second films, my theory is: according to reputation and second-hand experience, Musk has always been a fucking asshole in person. he probably burned out the crew’s good will quickly, and they just wanted to be rid of him.
I think it was SpaceX, not Tesla, but yeah... boring AF warehouse.
it takes craft to make a rocket lab look boring, assuming it was intentional and not the result of an adult coming into the room and reminding Musk that none of the government secrets should be on film
Wait he pulled a Trump?
pretty much! for a very similar length and style of cameo too
No one wants to hang out with their dealer more than is absolutely necessary.
I wish I could remember who it was who said that out of all those inane cameos, Iron Man 2 is the only one that makes sense, because Tony Stark at his most boozy, self-indulgent and self-destructive would invite Musk to a party.
Now I wonder if Musk calling the diver "pedo guy" was him thinking "yeah, this is exactly what Tony Stark would say to the bad guy" because he doesn't understand media literacy even a little bit. (More likely, it's just him being the regular type of weird we've come to expect from him)
like Matt Mullenweg trying to figure out what Ghandi would do
Launch all the nukes?