Thai cave rescue: Go home, Elon Musk

Elon Musk arrived at the Thai cave rescue site mid-way through the rescue effort.

He’s a forty-seven year old man who wants to go to Mars, via Adelaide.

He dates a dystopian cyber punk, who goes by the name Grimes.

They debuted their relationship at the Met Gala, having bonded over Dune, a novel-cum-series that concerns the terraforming of a desert planet.

So, come on, would you trust your sunken 14-year-old to him, and his fancy gadgets?

Well no, and neither do the Thais.

Elon Musk – a self-promoting, space-obsessed billionaire, in case you don’t know - arrived at the Thai cave rescue site yesterday, toting a silver bullet.

Except it only looked like one.

The “kid-size submarine” that Musk and his team had built in less than eight hours, ostensibly to help with the rescue of the Thai soccer players, was dismissed within minutes as being entirely useless.

Cave rescue command chief Narongsak Osaththakorn put it politely, saying the device was “not suitable” for the mission.

Elon appeared despondent. He’s been Tweeting about the rescue for days before deciding to go there in the early hours with a transparent, flexible oxygen tube he had nicknamed the Wild Boar.

It was, said Musk, a “double-layer Kevlar pressure pod with Teflon coating to slip by rocks … do the divers think something like this might work?”

Well, Musk is after all a man whose inventions have never made any money, and yet he is a billionaire, so who knows?

Maybe he can turn straw into gold, and maybe we shouldn’t be such cynical sourpusses, pouring scorn on his honest effort to assist in the rescue.

Except of course for this one inconvenient fact: the rescue was already well underway by the time Musk arrived, with seven of the twelve boys safely to the surface.

Doesn’t that make the whole thing smell like a stunt?

And if so, isn’t there something a little stinky about a man who uses the plight of trapped children to market his rockety devices?

Welcome to the 21st century. Welcome to Elon-Gate.

Undaunted, the doughty Musk, having taken up the rescuers precious time with his tube, Tweeted again, saying: “Just returned from Cave 3. Mini-sub is ready if needed. It is made of rocket parts … Leaving here in case it may be useful in the future. Thailand is so beautiful.”

Twitter – yes, Twitter, no irony there – was appalled, with many users saying he was a narcissist.

He said: “If I am a narcissist – which might be true – at least I am a useful one.”

Yeah, but no. Here’s a Thai take-out for you Elon: go home. The Thais, the British, the Navy SEALS – they’ve got this.