Elon Musk Has Been Silently Hiring Writers From “The Onion” For Secret Comedy Project

In a story that seems like it would be satire, visionary inventor and entrepreneur Elon Musk has been hiring writers from the popular joke news site “The Onion” for his own secret project.

Musk, is, of course, the CEO and CTO of SpaceX, CEO and product architect of Tesla Motors and chairman of SolarCity. He is also the founder of SpaceX and a co-founder of PayPal.

According to a report this week from The Daily Beast, Former Onion Editor in Chief Cole Bolton and Executive Editor Ben Berkley left the Onion last year, and have since been working on a project with none other than Elon Musk.

“We can confirm that we have learned nothing from prevailing trends in media and are launching a brand-new comedy project,” Bolton and Berkley said in a statement to The Daily Beast.

It is unclear how the current writers at The Onion feel about this new venture, but it is possible that there is drama behind the scenes. Just last month The Onion posted a satirical piece titled, “Elon Musk Offering $1.2 Billion in Grants to Any Project That Promises to Make Him Feel Complete.”

The satire article read in part, “Calling his profound feelings of emptiness “almost too painful to bear,” Elon Musk, founder of Tesla, SpaceX, Neuralink, the Boring Company, and a variety of other tech and infrastructure firms, reportedly offered $1.2 billion in grants Wednesday to any project that could make him feel complete…..Musk went on to offer an additional $1.2 billion to anyone who could show him the meaning of what people often refer to as “love.”

It doesn’t seem like the current Onion staff is very happy with Musk.

When asked about his involvement in the project Musk said, “It’s pretty obvious that comedy is the next frontier after electric vehicles, space exploration, and brain-computer interfaces. Don’t know how anyone’s not seeing this.”

While the full details of this new project have not been revealed, Page Six reported that there are as many as 6 former writers from the Onion on the team.

After the story was published, Musk made the following Tweet, which said, “Thud! That’s the name of my new intergalactic media empire.”

That’s the name of my new intergalactic media empire, exclamation point optional

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) March 14, 2018

According to Variety.com, a domain-name registration search shows that someone has reserved “thud.com” on Dec. 6, 2017, through GoDaddy, but the listing was private. A source for The Daily Beast said that Musk will likely not play an editorial role with this new project.

Musk actually considered buying The Onion in 2013 but the deal never went through.

Photo: Getty Images/The Onion.