The world’s richest man, Elon Musk stunned his followers last week when he suggested his imminent death in mysterious circumstances.
The CEO both of Tesla (Electric Car Manufacturing Company in the USA) and now of Twitter, Musk has sent the world into fears over his life after posting about the chances of his death, coming just days after he announced his decision to buy the micro-blogging site for $44 Billion, although news came Friday Musk is halting the Twitter take over to resolve concerns over the number of fake or spam accounts on the platform.
“Twitter deal temporarily on hold pending details supporting calculation that spam/fake accounts do indeed represent less than 5 per cent of users,” Mr Musk was quoted as saying in a tweet on Friday.
Recall that the Bloomberg Billionaires Index had named Mr Musk the world’s richest person at the end of 2021 with a personal fortune of $273.5bn. Mr Musk added $68bn to his net worth over the past year after a 33 per cent jump in the share price of his electric vehicle maker, Tesla, Forbes said.
By all means possible, Musk must be prevailed upon not to die now if he could, because the global business community needs him now more than ever. His family needs him, his friends and associates need him, his workers need him, his country the USA needs him and those he has inspired, including his admirers world over all need him to live. Musk, just 50, has transformed wealth creation through innovations in space technology, electrical auto engineering and has opened a new frontier of investments in the microblogging space through his ‘uneasy’ take over of Twitter. He has to live to sustain these profound legacies.
Certainly, as humans, we are destined to die at some point in our lives as ordained by God and we do not have control over that. Every man’s dying day was fixed the day he was born, even though we are all desirous of a fulfilled long life full of accomplishments. But as for Musk, living a long life is not a big deal.”I certainly would like to maintain health for a longer period of time. But I am not afraid of dying. I think it would come as a relief,” he was once quoted as saying.
There are however deaths that are preventable or avoidable, and Musk himself has suggested that possibility and we urge him to exploit that window to live. It really beats one’s imagination for someone of Musk’s status to signal his own death, and to be okay with it. Is he going to take his own life? This is most unlikely because he has no reason to do so having risen to the peak of accomplishments as a global icon with everything at his disposal. Is he suspicious of external threats to his life and is somehow convinced of the possibility of success of such a threat? We hope not either.
News report credited to him May 9 quoted him as raising the alarm about his imminent death. This is hard to swallow for many who believe in him. Reports quoted Musk to have tweeted the disturbing post, “suggesting that his life might be cut short. Though he did not give full details of what his fears are, the billionaire hinted his life may be threatened.”
In what seems to be a gesture of lack of regret, Musk was quoted as declaring that “it has been nice getting to know you”, without giving a clearer picture of who “you’ in that situation referred to. There were speculations however that he was referring to individuals who have shown him a lot of support. He had tweeted: “If I die under mysterious circumstances, it’s been nice knowing ya”. When confronted by a fan, some reports said his mother, that his response was unpalatable, Musk was quoted as saying he will do his best to stay alive.
According to the Independent, Musk also said he was “OK with going to hell”. That statement came amid a spat with the head of Russia’s space agency. “I’m ok with going to hell, if that is indeed my destination,” he wrote in a recent post.
Some accounts said Mr Musk’s series of posts began when he shared a post allegedly from Dmitry Rogozin, the head of the Russian space agency, which accused him of having aided fascists in the ongoing war in Ukraine by providing Starlink space internet satellites, an offshoot of his Space X technology investments, to the Azov battalion and Ukrainian marines allegedly through the Pentagon.
“And for this, Elon, you will be held accountable like an adult – no matter how much you’ll play the fool,” the statement was quoted as saying. Minutes after sharing that message, Mr Musk wrote another in which he seemed to suggest he had taken that statement as a threat, the Independent had reported.
Mr Rogozin and Mr. Musk were said to have traded barbs throughout the Russian invasion of Ukraine which have varied between “highly mocking and somewhat bellicose.”
And in response to Musk’s tweets about his own death, one of his followers asked whether he believed “there was a great creator of this world”. “If you did, make sure you confess this before your last heartbeat. Bless you.”
Mr Musk then wrote the message about hell in response. “Thank you for the blessing, but am OK with going to hell if that is indeed my destination since the vast majority of all humans ever born will be there.”
Mr Musk’s cryptic twits about his own death has led to a number of responses, including from his mother Maye. “That’s not funny,” she wrote, along with two angry emojis.” Sorry, “ Mr Musk replied.” I will do my best to stay alive. “
The Washington Post reported that Elon Musk recently challenged Russian President Vladimir Putin to a one-handed fistfight for the future of Ukraine. But the entrepreneur’s real defense of the besieged country is his effort to keep Ukrainians online with shipments of Starlink satellite Internet service.
Starlink is a unit of Musk’s space company, SpaceX. The service uses terminals that resemble TV dishes equipped with antennas and are usually mounted on roofs to access the Internet via satellite in rural or disconnected areas.
When war broke out in Ukraine, the country faced threats of Russian cyberattacks and shelling that had the potential to take down the Internet, making it necessary to develop a backup plan. So the country’s minister of digital transformation, Mykhailo Fedorov, tweeted a direct plea to Musk urging him to send help. Musk replied just hours later: “Starlink service is now active in Ukraine. More terminals en route.”
It is not certain Musk was suggesting his death on account of the face-off with Russian figures, but this is not unlikely given the context, the tone and the emotional content of the exchanges. That said, death in this circumstance must be avoided through the mechanism of dialogue and constructive engagements. After all, there are no permanent enemies where strategic interests are at play. Just as we hope for a truce between Musk and his supposed adversaries to avert his death, we also hope for an amicable resolution of the Russia/Ukraine war so that lives will be saved on both sides. Our humanity matters.
