Elon Musk is one of the most talked-about individuals of 2022, for better or bad (albeit I tend towards the worse). However, a year filled with scandals, controversies, admonitions, and dubious tweets has not gone unpunished; the results are all there, on the balance sheet, in the form of a huge failure. According to Bloomberg, the CEO of Tesla, SpaceX, and Twitter is the only person to ever have his net worth reduced by $200 billion. This represents a sharp decline in his wealth following Twitter’s shocking 56% value decline. And yet, one is left to wonder: Does he really care, given the recent stolen photos that show the (now former) Forbes richest man in the world joking around in Qatar with Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kuchner and the wife of Kremlin banker Andrei Kostin in what appears to be some sort of reunion with the horsemen of the apocalypse? In order to speculate on a solution, one must stand back and consider the value system that motivates a man who wants to colonize Mars and has the makings of a lunatic, as well as a worldview that shares many similarities with the Matrix.

In an interview at CodeCon 2021, Musk delivered an unexpected response when asked if he thinks that human existence is a part of a “bigger simulation”: “My heart says no and my intellect says yes.” Add to this the assertions made on the matter in a number of American podcasts as well as the author Devin Gordon Elon’s comments in the BBC documentary series The Elon Musk Show, which claim that the tech tycoon thinks his ex-partner Grimes is a “simulation” he built in his mind. «She [Grimes] has informed me of Musk’s theory regarding her numerous times. He feels that she is a constructed simulation and that she resides in his cerebral cortex as some sort of ideal partner for him, not real, as Gordon claimed. She acknowledges that it sounds a little bizarre and possibly even frightening. She claimed that she felt like a model made particularly for him.“

The simulation theory may sound like it came from a sci-fi movie or was created by a ghost under the influence of strong psychoactive drugs, but every scientist in the world has at some point encountered this issue. An idea that has its roots in the Oxford philosopher and futurist Nick Bostrom’s beliefs from 2003 and is based on observations of recent technology advancements, such as virtual reality and attempts to map the human brain. The argument is based on two premises, both of which are debatable but plausible: the first is that logic gates in a computer can replace the synapses and neurotransmitters in the brain to simulate consciousness, and the second is that highly advanced civilizations will have access to truly incredible levels of computing power. This capability may theoretically be used by a civilization at this stage of development to power a “ancestral simulation,” which would be like a sophisticated version of The Sims but with ontological aspirations. To us, the construction of a single such simulation may seem amazing, but according to Bostrom, one computer may one day be able to manage thousands or even millions of ancestor simulations. What then remained of morality, ethics, fate, and life itself in the face of the contradiction of simulated existence, assuming this scenario is accurate? What is the worth of what we do? The notion that everything has already been accomplished taints the thrill of conquering; even if Musk colonizes Mars, he won’t be the first to do so, and even if his endeavors fail, there will be other simulations in which they succeed. Elon believes that life is far more like a video game than an ordinary day.