Shenanigans
As I joked in my monologue on Saturday Night Live: “Look, I know I say or post strange things, but that's just how my brain works. To anyone I have offended, I just want to say I reinvented electric cars and I'm sending people to Mars on a rocket ship. Did you think I was also going to be a chill, normal dude?”[45]
I don't really think about personal brand optimization, to be frank, as is obvious from my tweets, which are often self-inflicted wounds or humor I find funny, but is not necessarily funny to many other people.[36]
The most entertaining outcome is the most likely. (As seen by an unaffected third party).[64]
Spaceballs
The Tesla Model S seemed ludicrously fast. And I like Spaceballs as a movie. So we named it “ludicrous mode” for that reason. I mean, I thought it was funny—maybe not everyone thinks it’s funny, but I thought it was funny. It’s memorable. I think people are gonna remember “ludicrous speed” more than they’re gonna remember that it’s, like 2.8 seconds zero to sixty. And our competitors usually don’t have a sense of humor, so I think that’s a differentiator.[95]
No other car companies have a sense of humor. They're super serious, no fun at all. I think, “What's the product I want?” The car that's the most fun. We just try to create as much fun as you can have in a car.[58]
I'm always in favor of humor.[154]
I still get teased about the story of going on a date in college. She said the first question I asked her was “Do you ever think about electric cars?” All I was talking about was electric cars. It was not a winning conversation. Not a great date. Though it's been more effective recently![49]
The Most Liked Tweet Of All Time
I strive to keep people entertained.[58]
I've gotten into trouble so many times on Twitter. It's insane how often. I'm the only one who's ever tweeted or had access to that Twitter account.[58]
I have the honor of having the most-liked tweet of any living human. Thank you, everyone, for liking my tweet. That tweet has 5 million likes or something. That was when I tweeted, “Next I’m buying Coca-Cola to put the cocaine back in.”[37]
It's clearly something the public really wants. Coca-Cola corporation should really think about going back to their roots. I guess this is the reason why our grandparents could walk 20 miles each way in the snow.[37]