Sam Leith Sam Leith

What’s so funny about Elon Musk?

Elon Musk (Credit: Getty images)

At the end of last week, at an AI event in California, Elon Musk unveiled his latest project: a humanoid robot called Optimus. Optimus wobbled onto the small stage like a contestant in Stars In Their Eyes: ‘Tonight, Matthew, I’m going to be a 1970s idea of what a robot butler would look like if he’d been at the sherry.’ 

Musk told his bemused audience that this was the first time Optimus had walked anywhere without a tether, and admitted he was relieved it hadn’t fallen over – but assured them that the moment heralded ‘a fundamental transformation of civilisation as we know it’. He promised that one day not too far into the future millions of these robots would roll off Tesla’s production lines at a consumer cost of around $20,000 (£18,000).

What caught my attention was not the scale of Musk’s ambition nor the ludicrousness of his hype, but what he chose to call his new invention. Unless I guess wrong, the name is intended as a tribute to Optimus Prime, leader of the valiant Autobots in the kids’ toy and cartoon franchise from the 1980s. He is hoping to transform global civilisation by becoming the Henry Ford of intelligent robots – and he can’t resist a playground callback. That is Elon Musk all over. It’s savvy marketing – he’s Not Like Those Other Squares – but it’s a bit more than that.

My kids are currently obsessed with a YouTuber called Mr Beast. Mr Beast’s schtick, essentially, is to combine being very rich with being very juvenile. If you’re a friend of Mr Beast, you’re liable to come home from work one day and find that your entire house has been filled with elephant toothpaste, but it’s okay because – psych! – he’s built you a new house and there’s a brand new Lambo in the driveway.

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