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The Street
The Street
Business
Luc Olinga

Elon Musk Lands The Hottest Gig in Hollywood

Elon Musk is currently the most influential CEO in the world with colossal responsibilities. 

He is involved in four companies that each have the ambition to disrupt and dominate their industry: Tesla (TSLA), SpaceX, The Boring Company and Neuralink. The promises made by his companies are enormous.

Within the next two months, EV maker Tesla has promised to roll out to at least 100,000 people the latest update of Full Self-Driving (FSD), its driver assistance system, which has advanced features and is supposed to bring closer its vehicles to autonomy.

The automaker also has the second edition of its Artificial intelligence day  on Sept. 30. Musk is to present a functional humanoid robot there, which is scheduled to be marketed beginning in 2023. 

Fierce Battle

Neuralink, which designs and installs brain-machine interfaces, will provide an update on its work on Oct. 31. The objective of its technology is to strengthen cognitive abilities by interacting directly a person's brain. The billionaire and Neuralink tested their chip on a pig called Gertrude on Aug. 28, 2020.

For Musk, Neuralink will soon make it possible to save memories, and potentially to download them into another body or into a robot. Its technology, the company said, should also provide a better understanding of neurological diseases. 

But the firm has fallen behind the competition. Synchron, which is developing its own brain-machine interface technology, obtained regulatory approvals from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration in 2021 to test its chip on humans. 

In addition, Musk is also in a legal battle with Twitter (TWTR) after he abruptly withdrew its $44 billion bid made on April 14 to acquire the microblogging website. The two parties are currently fighting each other through subpoenas. Twitter wants the court to force Musk to keep his original pledge. Musk says the platform lies about the number of fake accounts, or spam bots, populating the social network. A quick five-day trial is scheduled for October 17 if the two sides do not reach an agreement by then.

Musk Will Open a Chris Rock Show

As if all this were not enough Musk has just announced that he now has a new task to accomplish: he will open a show by comedian Chris Rock, who has been in the news for several months after the Slapgate scandal.

Last March during the Oscars, actor Will Smith, who would later be crowned best actor for his role as the father of tennis stars Venus and Serena Williams in King Richard, created a resounding scandal by slapping comedian Chris Rock on stage after a bad joke about his wife, Jada Pinkett Smith. Despite Smith's apology, tensions remain between the two men. Since then, the scent of scandal has made Rock shows among the most popular and most coveted tickets in Hollywood.

"@Chrisrock invited me to open for one of his shows. Thanks Chris!" Musk posted on Twitter on Sept. 3. 

The richest man in the world seems to have accepted the invitation:  "I will try not to flounder too much," Musk added.

The serial entrepreneur did not provide further details. It does not give, for example, the date of the show which it will open or the place where it will take place. Rock is currently touring across the country and in Europe. From Sept. 7-12 he and fellow comedian Dave Chapelle will be on tour in Europe (Netherlands, Germany and Denmark), according to Ticketmaster. And for the rest of the month, the comedian will resume his shows alone in Detroit, Philadelphia and Pittsburgh before New Orleans and New York in early October.

Musk's announcement came as a comment to a post from a video clip from his May 2021 Saturday Night Live hosting gig. He's heard saying "I reinvented electric cars and I'm sending people to Mars in a rocket ship. Did you think I was also going to be a chill normal dude?"

The announcement of the billionaire who has nearly 105 million fans on the platform has completely electrified his fans.

"Great news!!! 🔥🔥🔥," one Twitter user commented with a picture of Rock and Musk.

"You will do well, Elon. You’re pretty hilarious," another user posted.

"No slapping," another user quipped.

"I want to be at this show," added another fan.

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