Elon Musk was very, very busy in 2016 — we should know, we exhaustively cataloged his whole year. And now, with 2017 right around the corner, it’s got us wondering what he’s gonna get up to over the next 365 days. As far as we know, the man behind the man behind SpaceX, Tesla, and Hyperloop isn’t trying to invent time travel as well (again, as far as we know), but Inverse found a way to peek into the future. Here’s what Musk will do in the new year.
Take a Victory Lap After Model 3 Debuts
With the release of the Tesla Model 3, Musk will usher in a new era of transportation. The cars work perfectly, and Musk’s company will scramble to meet demand. The autopilot will be so advanced that it’ll know when to turn itself around if the kids are misbehaving in the back seat, and one of the Easter Eggs will give the Model 3 the offensive capabilities of a Mario Kart.
Approximately one week after the Model 3 launches, Musk will tweet: “The Model 4 plans are tricky but coming together at expected rate.”
Get Shady, Shady Revenge Facebook
In early spring, Facebook’s Aquila drone will explode in a spectacular fashion. While the industrious, forward-thinking side of Musk will be sad to see Mark Zuckerberg’s latest innovation fail, his petty side will be psyched. Ever since Zuck dissed SpaceX after that unfortunate rocket explosion, Musk’s been waiting for a Facebook failure to provide him an opening to get some sweet revenge.
The day after the Aquila disaster, Musk will publicly lament the loss of a technology that could’ve provided internet to underserved areas, and then reveal he had SpaceX build a perfectly functioning internet drone of its own. The Zuckerbird, as Musk cheekily nicknamed the drone, will be a tremendous success but create an Oculus-sized rift between Musk and Facebook.
Fall Off a SolarCity Roof
Musk’s year will take a turn for the worse when he breaks his arm falling off of a SolarCity roof while trying to retrieve a frisbee.
Quietly Observe What Would’ve Been SpaceX’s Astronaut Launch Date
One day, Musk will ask to be alone. Returning to his house, the SpaceX CEO will pour a glass of wine, sit on a balcony underneath an expanse of stars, and mourn what could have been. SpaceX looks like it might still be able to send astronauts into space in 2018 but Musk, ever the perfectionist, will mourn the passing of the original, pre-delay launch date he’d so passionately envisioned.
Musk will finish the bottle of wine and, on an ill-advised whim, begin to binge re-watch Westworld. It’s too painful.
Lose Interest in His Boring Company
In late 2016, Musk announced for the tenth or so time that he was seriously, definitely, for real, gonna start a company that digs massive tunnels to alleviate traffic problems. He’ll give it a pretty good go, but by mid-2017, Musk will … just sort of stop, having moved on to a much more exciting Hyperloop development. He won’t shitcan the whole endeavor, however. In 2019 he’ll be into the boring idea again and at least then he won’t have to start from scratch.
Get Really Into Jack Kerouac
Tesla will make good on its promise that all of its cars will be fully autonomous by 2017, and Musk will celebrate by going on a cross-country road trip with his old PayPal buddy, Peter Thiel. The two of them won’t actually be doing any driving, obviously, but they’ll explore the great America southwest and learn new things about themselves on the road. Musk will get super, super into Jack Kerouac during the trip. This will be extremely phony and annoying.
Musk and Thiel’s self-driving car will only crash twice during the entire trip; once when it nails a cow in Iowa, and a second time when it collides head-on with a self-driving Uber in San Francisco. Nobody will be seriously injured (except for the cow, which will invest the settlement money in PayPal stock).
Get in a Fight With His “Boss”
For most of 2017, Musk will try to avoid spending time with President Donald Trump, on account of Trump being an ochre ignoramus. The two will occasionally squabble about little things — Musk won’t have SpaceX do work on Air Force One so it can go to Mars, Trump thinks that basic income is “basic-and-dumb” — but things will really come to a head when Musk tells Trump that he can’t just have Tesla’s autopilot run the country while he chills at Mar-a-Lago. Trump, angrily, will do what he always does when he feels slighted: Tweet about it.
Be Elected President of the Newly Seceded Nation of California
When the year starts to wrap up, things will escalate quickly. After losing Musk, Trump will lose the American people — especially Californians, who will make good on their crazy threat to secede from the union. Using a Twitter poll, the ruling class of Silicon Valley will elect Musk to be their first-ever leader. Trump will simply call Musk and his new citizens “losers and haters,” claiming that Calexit only Made America Great Again.
It won’t be until Musk orders that Trump’s twitter account be shut down that open war breaks out.
Prove That, Yes, Our Reality Actually Is a Computer Simulation
As the American-Californian War rages, advisors to President Musk will notice that he seems distracted. They wonder if maybe it’s just the pressure of the office or the horrors of war. That’s not it, though — Musk will be preoccupied because he realized he was right. None of this matters, because none of this is real.
Musk, finally, will have proven that our reality is naught but a computer simulation. He’ll have learned how to alter the source code. Whereas Musk started out the year trying to explore space with his rocket company and save time with Hyperloop, now he can alter the flow of both space and time with a wave of his hand.
He hopefully will be able to use this godlike power to prevent SpaceX’s manned spacecraft launch from being pushed back another year.
