About fifteen years ago, sports journalist Bill Simmons coined the phrase “The Tyson Zone‘, which refers to a rare situation where you would believe absolutely everything someone told you about a person. (The stories about Mike Tyson are still horrific and wild to read about.) It’s a high bar to clear because in order for someone to enter the Tyson Zone, you have to be willing to believe the phrase “Did you hear he ___” no matter how the sentence ends. Charlie Sheen did a stint in the Tyson Zone during his ‘WINNING’ era. Lindsay Lohan was there for a while. Dennis Rodman married himself and then went to North Korea and practically built a house in the Tyson Zone. Nilay Patel, The Verges editor-in-chief and my boss flirt with the Tyson Zone on a daily basis.
Elon Musk currently lives large in the Tyson Zone. We should honestly call it the Elon Zone. Is there something you should not believe he said or did? The man has more money than some countries, more Twitter followers than the Kardashians and the sense of humor of a 13-year-old boy.
And so it was, I think, that a number of people took Musk seriously when he… tweeted that he was planning to buy Manchester United, the controversial Premier League football club you could rightly describe as ‘the New York Yankees of English football’. It became a news item! The club’s share, which is listed on the stock exchange, rose more than 10 percent! The current owners of the team have apparently said they are willing to sell a minority stake in the company! And all this goes on and on even after Musk literally said the words, “I don’t buy sports teams.”
I also buy Manchester United, welcome
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) August 17, 2022
The best part about this story is that Musk is just recycling an old joke. He tweeted in April that “Then I’ll buy Coca-Cola to put the cocaine back in” and has spent months since telling everyone who wants to hear it that it’s the most-liked Twitter post of all time. (I can’t vouch for that fact, but 4.8 million likes is certainly a lot, and Musk has the Twitter fire hose, so I suppose he would know.) The idea of restoring Manchester United to its old football glory isn’t that funny – only 855,000 likes on the tweet, sorry buddy – but it fits. And it’s not like it’s an impossible idea, right? Buying Manchester United would probably cost Musk about $5 billion, which I believe is less than the Twitter deal will end up costing him even if he can walk away. And since all sufficiently wealthy men eventually decide they want to have a sports team, buying the club shouldn’t even come as much of a surprise to Musk.
But there’s a critical way the Elon Zone isn’t like the Tyson Zone: Musk purposefully cultivates the uncertainty and chaos that swirls around him. As a result, in these cases, there’s really only one way to respond to Musk’s antics. You have to believe his legal records – not his tweets – because Elon Musk is many things, but on Twitter he is mostly a shitposter.
So when it comes to his tweets, you should always look at what happens right before he tweets, because Musk usually tries to divert your attention. In this case, Musk even told us exactly what he’s trying to hide! His Man U tweet was actually a response to a seemingly unrelated tweet from five minutes earlier. It read, “Just to be clear, I support the left half of the Republican Party and the right half of the Democratic Party!” So if we apply the Rule of Musk Tweets, it is quite clearly a response to the leak Musk had happy right wing people have been to a party in wyoming hosted by Republican minority leader Kevin McCarthy. Although Musk reportedly told everyone in attendance to deny he was there, everyone started taking selfies right away with Musk and pretty much ruined that.
The news that Musk is a Republican — or at least happy to act like a Republican when it helps his companies — shouldn’t surprise anyone. In public, he continues to portray himself as the reasonable man in a country full of lunatics, but privately he seems to like to play whatever side suits him, which, at least lately, has been leaning harder and harder to the right. Musk knows better than anyone that if his audience has to choose between “Elon Musk hobnobs with the Republican elite” and “OMG, is he seriously buying a football team?” most people will focus on silly football shenanigans. Even the numbers prove it: Musk’s “I’m a centrist!” tweet got less than half the engagement when Man U’s reply, and the football joke sparked a much bigger news cycle (congratulations, Reuters!).
Musk even gave it a little more fuel: half an hour after admitting it was a joke, he seemed to subtly imply that he might be serious after all. “Although if it were a team it would be Man U. They were my favorite team as a kid,” he tweeted in response to his “long running joke” tweet.
Again, let’s be super clear here: Elon Musk is not buying Manchester United. I do not think? Look, this is the problem. I can’t blame anyone who still thinks they could! Because it’s what he does! He usually pushes the boundaries of belief at much lower stakes, such as when he randomly decides to release a song called “Don’t Doubt Your Vibe” or sells “The World’s Most Boring Hat”. Sometimes, what seems like whims — like when Musk created the hyperloop, apparently in an effort to… beat a move for high speed trains in california — are actually recalculated diversions. Sometimes he even tries to buy Twitter. And knowing what’s what can be damn near impossible right now.
Life in the Elon Zone has often been very good. Musk can say wild-sounding things about changing the auto industry and building a city on Mars and the value of humanoid robots, and investors, governments and fans make him believe and fund him against all odds.
But as the investigation into Musk and his companies has grown, the “anything seems possible” effect is starting to work against him. Has Musk promised a woman a horse in exchange for sexual favors and slept with Sergey Brin’s wife? He denied it, but it doesn’t seem impossible. Is Tesla a toxic company full of toxic people with ‘fully self-driving’ technology that is actually extremely dangerous? Seems curious! Will he actually go to court with Twitter and risk $44 billion just out of pride and anger? Sounds like Elon!
One thing that has worked for Musk is that most of his promises are both so distant and so enticing that it is often both difficult and buzzkill to try to prove him wrong. Moreover, he is a big and rich enough bully to win most fights. And maybe Musk can happily live his chaotic life in the Elon Zone as long as Tesla keeps making cars and making money. But at least a reality check comes one way: We’re almost exactly two months away from the Twitter/Musk trial in Delaware Chancery Court, and if you think you know what’s going to happen between now and then, I think you ‘m wrong. But I would believe almost anything.
