Is Elon Musk following me? Lifting my ideas for his products and campaigns? Or it is just coincidence?
A couple of years ago Mr Musk’s little motor company announced their huge wedge-shaped electric pick-up truck and I spotted certain similarities with my work in creating my amazing Rumbler 505 Sport Tank. Wedge-shaped? Yes. Bulletproof? Yes (well no in the case of the Musk truck when he thrashed it at the world unveiling and broke the “bulletproof” window).
Of course this could just be coincidence or a little touch of common inspiration that drew his designers to a common theme. And then something else happened a few days ago to catch my eye and arouse my interest in the World of Musk.
100 Million Earth Day Competition
A few days ago on Earth Day 2021 around America (the 22nd of April, 2021) the visionary, innovative and disruptive Mr Musk announced the rules for his $100 million X-Prize to encourage solutions to carbon pollution and devise new ways to extract carbon from the atmosphere.
Hello, I said to myself, that sounds familiar. I vaguely remember coming up with such a proposal for a hundred million challenge – thirteen years ago.
My “Air Diamond Challenge” proposed creating a managed world fund for such a competition and to help subsidise researchers and innovators to devise new solutions. Not a quick short-term stunt for publicity but a sustainable fund and award that would stimulate and encourage new research for permanent and prosperous innovative ideas to capture and use carbon in new innovate and disruptive ways with lots of new science and technology.
You can read all about it here: Michael Bond’s Air Diamond Challenge.
Did he “lift” the idea from the pages of my writings or just another coincidence?
Next?
So what’s next for the world of Musk? Will he be reading my short stories about spaceflight and Mars to get “new” ideas for space colonisation or take his inspiration from something else I’m about to launch?
Carbon Removal
Oh, and as for removing huge tonnages of carbon from the atmosphere. That’s already built into the business modelling for Rumbler and will be ready for delivery about 9 years’ after completing funding and production of our Limited Edition superhero supercar to save the world. But I’ll keep mum about all that, you just don’t know who’s listening nowadays.