More Bad Press For Elon: The Car Elon Musk Launched Into Orbit Has Fallen Back Down To Earth And Crushed Malala Yousafzai https://t.co/9nx6RN9CLZ pic.twitter.com/AeyfXLRfu7
— ClickHole (@ClickHole) May 30, 2018
Billionaire Elon Musk hasn’t exactly had a smooth week in press relations, but today brought a string of feel-good tweets over a fake-news story on the ClickHole website.
The headline? “More Bad Press for Elon: The Car Elon Musk Launched Into Orbit Has Fallen Back Down to Earth and Crushed Malala Yousafzai.”
That’d be the last thing Musk needed: seeing the Tesla Roadster that was sent toward Mars on SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy rocket, with a Starman mannequin in the driver’s seat, crashing down on the Pakistani-born advocate for children’s rights and winner of the 2014 Nobel Peace Prize.
But the dark humor from The Onion’s viral parody spinoff resonated with Musk, who passed along the link in a tweet:
Hell of a week https://t.co/jKsfykkG55
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 31, 2018
It also tickled Malala, who’s better known by her first name than her surname. And that’s how the meet-cute got rolling:
Hello from the other side ? @elonmusk https://t.co/pRTnyptZ1N
— Malala (@Malala) May 31, 2018
Hi @Malala! ???
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 31, 2018
I’m keeping the car btw! ??
— Malala (@Malala) May 31, 2018
Finders keepers ??? https://t.co/zyV71zRIFQ
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 31, 2018
Fans of the Twitter stars (21.9 million for Musk, 1.3 million for Malala) loved it:
This is the dialogue that the world needs right now
— Phillip Wilkins (@pkwilkins) May 31, 2018
This is my favorite thing on the entirety of the internet right now. You both are amazing, inspirational, and please keep being you.
— IAM JAFO (@JAFOIAM) May 31, 2018
what have we seen today. A nobel prize winner and the man who has plans to visit mars are talking. why isn't this the biggest news story of 2018
— Michael (@michael_lyga) May 31, 2018
Musk then moved on to other Twitter subjects, talking up the Tesla Model 3 and practicing his university-level German (“Ich wünschte ich könnte es besser sprechen,” he tweeted.)
Starman and the Roadster are currently more than 35 million miles from Earth, heading outward toward the orbit of Mars (but not the Red Planet itself). Musk’s sports car won’t be back in Earth’s neighborhood around 2021, and even then, it’s not expected to come any closer than 25 million miles.
Bottom line: Malala has nothing to fear, at least from Starman.