Elon Musk drove a 2011 Tesla Roadster onto the Cyber Rodeo stage soundtracked by “Still D.R.E.” last night. I would say things only went downhill from there, but that would negate the previous 36 minutes of livestream footage I have waded through to get to this low point.
Before that, viewers were forced to sit through multiple Tesla commercials, belabored aerial shots of the new Texas Gigafactory lit up to look like the world’s most generic nightclub/sports stadium, and an aerial drone swarm showcase that stained the Texas night sky with vague representations of internet memes, Cybertrucks, and Elon Musk’s head.
And guess what? Tesla fanatics collectively lost their goddamn shit over all of it.
Trucks, taxis, and Terminators —
Speaking of Cybertrucks and Musk’s ego, they are both very big. Tesla eventually rolled out one of their “magnum opus” vehicles near the end of Musk’s longwinded slideshow presentation, promising they’ll start delivering them next year (for real this time, y’all). The rest of Musk’s keynote mostly concerned how Teslas are made, strategically focusing on the flashy automated aspects of the process, and not, say, the horrible human working conditions and virulently antiunion corporate atmosphere.
Later, Musk (once again) promised literally sobbing fans wearing “Elon accidentally followed me on Twitter” t-shirts that the Cybertruck would come next year alongside a “very futuristic” self-driving Robotaxi, as well as maybe even Tesla’s job-killing manual labor robot, Optimus. “Anything that humans don’t want to do, Optimus will do it,” Musk vowed before promising it will usher in a new “age of abundance.”
I wish I were kidding. I really, truly do.
Road to nowhere —
Elon Musk proved last night that the Technoking Cult is very real and fully committed to anything their multibillionaire oligarch edgelord says. Part of the reason the Cyber Rodeo livestream lasted as long as it did was due to the fact that Musk could barely get a full sentence in before rapturous hollering and applause broke out among the hundreds of audience members watching their First United Silicon Valley Church service through their smartphone camera lenses.
In all, the Cyber Rodeo was an extremely uncomfortable watch for anyone even vaguely aware of Elon Musk and his companies’ track records of overpromises, shoddy products, and downright dangerous impatience. Like his much darker mirror, Donald Trump, Musk now seems to speak in near constant hyperbole — every new development is the biggest, most successful, most Earth shattering industry thing possible, and it will all hit the market imminently, transforming life on Earth as we know it.
To close out the much anticipated Cyber Rodeo, attendees were treated to a large fireworks show timed to Beethoven’s Symphony No. 5, perhaps the only fitting set piece of the night: ostentatious, pretentious, and when all was said and done, nothing but noxious vapors disappearing into the air.
