Elon Musk Criticizes Leave The World Behind (And Proves He Didn't Watch It)
For having his hands in so many companies, Elon Musk also seemingly finds the time to call out folks on X, formerly known as Twitter. But maybe he should find time to research before spouting a half-baked opinion, as evidenced by his reaction to a clip from the Netflix original movie "Leave the World Behind."
The Netflix X account posted a clip of the movie where Amanda Sandford (Julia Roberts) and her family are attacked by self-driving Teslas (another Musk venture outside of X). They stumble upon rows of Teslas that have crashed into each other when more come out of nowhere and begin attacking the family. Musk responded, "Teslas can charge from solar panels even if the world goes fully Mad Max and there is no more gasoline!"
Musk seems to be under the impression the Teslas stalled out during an apocalypse, and he thinks it's a plot inaccuracy because they could still run even if electricity were lost. Perhaps he only watched the first few seconds of the clip before more operational Teslas enter the picture. Either way, some people called him out for misunderstanding a straightforward scene, like @AClownForHire, "Elon should rewatch the movie lol... they weren't hoarding electricity." The scene shows Teslas getting hijacked and made to run into people, reflecting how having all technology interconnected could lead to some theoretically terrifying results.
The Tesla scene in Leave the World Behind exemplifies the pitfalls of overreliance on technology
"Leave the World Behind" uses an apocalyptic scenario to examine various topical issues, such as race relations and humanity's reliance on technology. In the film, a news report says that hackers have infiltrated various pressure points, as shown in the Tesla scene. The various Teslas are stranded on the road not because they ran out of juice but because they crashed. And that's made possible due to various computer systems within the car and a heavily-touted autopilot feature, meaning hackers could feasibly hijack them and make them target whoever.
Technology is a fragile thing, which is what "Leave the World Behind" attempts to show. For example, the film also has a scene where Clay (Ethan Hawke) tries to go into a nearby town to get more information but can't get there because his GPS doesn't work. Nowadays, pretty much everyone is reliant on their laptops, smartphones, and apps to the point where losing them for even a day would cause massive panic. Teslas having a self-driving feature makes them dangerous in theory, especially considering The Washington Post reported that the self-driving technology in Teslas has already been implicated in 17 deaths.
Looper's own Alistair Ryder had qualms over "Leave the World Behind," too, but they're coherent points from someone who watched the film. This, combined with Musk's thoughts on "Barbie," means people probably shouldn't turn to him as a film critic any time soon.