If you enjoy the cringe comedy stylings of master manipulator and Canadian business school graduate Nathan Fielder, know that you’re not alone. In fact, you’re in company with everyone’s favourite richest man on Earth. Elon Musk also apparently feels a deep connection to Fielder’s off-kilter humour, and is sure that he could/should/would be friends with the funny man.
The Tesla CEO first invited the former Nathan For You host to lunch at SpaceX in 2016, according to a report from The New York Times. And he continued to include Fielder on party guest lists for years after, in an attempt to aggressively foster friendship with the comedian, wrote the Times. In each interaction, “the famous businessman invited the famous fake businessman to his parties and would strain to make the deadpan Canadian laugh.”
An unnamed comedy writer told the Times that “Mr. Musk has a deep-seated need to be recognised as funny.” Which is… relatable, if a little sad. Especially when considering that this is what we’re working with.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 2, 2022
Maybe instead of his arms, tweets, and texts, Musk should be putting a little more time into his tight five (you know, rehearsing). And, if he transitioned to stand-up over corporate trolling, maybe I’d get to spend less time writing about him (fingers crossed).
Unfortunately, the Fielder friendship bid is far from the only interesting tidbit to emerge from the Tuesday NYT article. Musk is reportedly also eager to curry favour with fellow-billionaire Peter Thiel, former PayPal lawyer Rebecca Eisenberg told The Times. After Musk butt his way into a conversation between her and Thiel at a party, Eisenberg noted that “It seemed like Peter was the dominant dog, and Elon was trying to impress him.” The source of her insight? Eisenberg’s experience and observations raising “two teenagers and four pets.”
Further, Times writer Joseph Bernstein, offered more context for the much-discussed photo of Musk with Jeffrey Epstein accomplice, Ghislaine Maxwell. Musk has previously denied any relationship with Maxwell, claiming that they’ve never spoken and that she simply “photobombed” him, according to Snopes. However, Bernstein says different, based on information from an unnamed source.
gonna miss being able to tweet this pic.twitter.com/iTCkGwvlZc
— Ken “Join My Newsletter” Klippenstein (@kenklippenstein) October 4, 2022
From The Times:
According to a Vanity Fair staff member at the time who stood next to Ms. Maxwell and Mr. Musk and shared contemporaneous notes with The Times, the pair chatted. Ms. Maxwell asked Mr. Musk if there were a way to remove oneself from the internet and encouraged Mr. Musk to destroy the internet; Mr. Musk demurred. Ms. Maxwell then asked Mr. Musk why aliens hadn’t yet made contact with humanity, to which Mr. Musk replied that all civilizations eventually end — including Maxwell’s hypothetical alien one — and raised the possibility that humans are living in a simulation.
Among Musk’s other associates: Joe Rogan, Burning Man attendees, and a bunch of other very rich, middle aged investor dweebs, with whom he reportedly discusses both business and World War II fighter planes.
And, when he’s not having conversations your dad might enjoy, Musk allegedly also participates in other social activities. One party guest told The Times that they once saw the SpaceX CEO cosy up in a “cuddle puddle,” defined by NYT as “a form of typically nonsexual group snuggling that is popular in the Bay Area.” So, if nothing else — at least this deep dive into the world’s richest man’s social life gave us that sentence, in the paper of record.