A billionaire business tycoon, investor and scientist comes to a city that in many ways functions as the centre of the modern world. A brilliant man, he brings to life previously unimaginable inventions with the potential to change the lives of millions for the better. 

The thread of space exploration winds throughout his career, including a desire to visit other planets. He’s known in part for his philanthropy. There are rumours of an eventual career in politics.

I’m talking, of course, about Lex Luthor.

He’s got a fleet of robotic rockets, a submarine car, a secret desert base and he wants to drop nuclear bombs on Mars. It’s time to face the facts: Elon Musk is a supervillain.

Given that he’s a young but brilliant engineer and entrepreneur, a visionary billionaire with a unique charm and a never-ending stream of futuristic technologies flowing from his Silicon Valley headquarters, it’s unsurprising that Elon Musk has often been compared to Tony Stark.

You ask a random individual about his views on Elon Musk and more-often-than-not, this is the reply: 

“Yaar, yeh banda cool hai.”

So, what is a supervillain? Magneto or Loki? They are superhuman in some way. But others – more in the mold of Lex Luthor or the majority of Bond villains are simply ordinary men with extraordinary talents (and/or extraordinary wealth). They tend to have unique, striking names. Often, their villainy isn’t immediately apparent. 

Otto Octavius was a highly respected nuclear physicist before he transformed into Doctor Octopus. Many supervillains are engaged in some sort of major infrastructure project they later deploy for ill means. Ernst Stavro Blofeld in Diamonds are Forever launched satellites. Syndrome, from The Incredibles, built an island lair.

The best villains are never evil for the sake of being evil, but instead their wrongdoing often stems from some misguided sense that they’re really helping the world.

Look at Musk, whose motivations are almost exclusively related to global menaces like abolishing pollution, pioneering space travel to avoid overpopulation, and establishing colonies to offer safe haven against extinction-level events.

Elon Musk is trying to convince the world that he’s going to be our saviour against an impending apocalypse when the machines rise.

Musk, meanwhile, preaches the gospel of the coming robo-apocalypse (Robocalypse or Robocalypto, anyone?) without hesitation or restraint. In an interview at MIT, Musk called AI our biggest existential threat, adding that, “With artificial intelligence, we are summoning the demon. You know those stories where there’s the guy with the pentagram, and the holy water, and he’s like, ‘Yeah, he’s sure he can control the demon.’ It doesn’t work out.” 

And in another recent interview, this time with Vanity Fair, he responded to a deeply silly question – could SpaceX vessels could be used to escape an Earth-based AI uprising – with breathtaking sincerity. “No – more likely than not that if there’s some… apocalypse scenario, it may follow people from Earth.”

Who tries to rally humans against a supposed enemy because of the immense potential that the ‘enemy’ has? Every supervillain ever. Lex did it with Superman and Dr. Doom does it all the time in the comics.

Cars which can drive themselves, robotic rockets that can land upright and re-launch themselves, a gigantic city-sized solar panel installation, an electrically-powered jet concept that can take off and land vertically.

When it comes to supervillain technology, all that Musk is missing is a giant planet-destroying laser and knowing him he probably already has one of those stuffed away somewhere for a rainy day.

Just some of the tricks and gizmos packed into the new Tesla Model X SUV include a button which can activate an advanced air filter that can protect the occupants inside from chemical and biological weapons.

Called the ‘Bio-Hazard Button’, it activates the air filtration system which Musk says is powerful enough to fill the car with medical grade air and can block everything from city smog to bacteria and viruses.

It’s a cool feature, that much is a given, but exactly why would Musk engineer a car to be resistant to biological weapon attacks anyway? Is he planning to exterminate anybody who doesn’t drive a Tesla?!

Stan Lee saw this coming. He tried warning us but the gullible media outlets are falling for the charade that Elon Musk has put up.

Everybody knows that you can’t be taken seriously as a credible supervillain unless you’ve got a slightly odd but distinct name: think Victor Von Doom, Auric Goldfinger, Lex Luthor or Baron Zemo. Or Elon Musk.

In terms of supervillain name, Musk definitely has that base covered. 

Elon Musk has a cool secret lair hidden away in a desert so that his operations are away from human civilisation. 

Maybe it’s not as glamorous as a moon base or a volcano lair, but Musk’s Tesla HQ deep in the Nevada desert is probably a bit more practical but equally as mysterious.

Tucked away and protected day and night by guards, it’s full of robots and advanced technologies and even has a suitable ominous name: Gigafactory.

We are not pointing fingers or trying to assert something here. We are just saying that there is a high possibility that Elon Musk will turn into a supervillain. 

We’re not saying he’s evil or already a supervillain. But if he does turn to the Dark Side, we’ll need an Avengers or Justice League of our own.