Tesla Motors and SpaceX founder and CEO Elon Musk is the latest guest for the long-running animated comedy series The Simpsons, in an episode that led to Musk launching a "tweetologue" regarding a comment made by a character at the end of the show.
In the Jan. 25 episode of The Simpsons entitled The Musk that Fell to Earth, Musk landed his spacecraft in the backyard of the Simpsons. Lisa Simpson, the genius daughter, introduced Musk to his family as "possibly the greatest living inventor," later explaining that the electric vehicles that Musk developed "changed the way Hollywood drives."
Musk is seen as suffering from an inventor's block throughout the episode, with his new inspiration coming from one of the unlikeliest sources possible, namely the ramblings of Homer Simpson.
While the episode never named the companies of Musk, the show took the liberty of taking a few punches at the business model of Tesla Motors and SpaceX.
When Musk introduced self-driving electric vehicles and the Hyperloop high-speed transport system into Springfield, the town loses money. Musk's presentation for the technologies featured headlines that included "No upside for years," "Makes no financial sense but it's cool," and "A terrible sacrifice now that future generations may appreciate."
Musk, however, is still able to convince greedy business tycoon Montgomery Burns to invest into his designs. However, this leads to losses of millions of dollars and massive job cuts in Springfield.
Musk was presumably fine with the jabs on his companies, as he himself helped out in the creation of the episode by lending his voice to his character. However, Musk decided to publicly respond to a comment made by Lisa Simpson at the end of the show, when Musk blasted off into space on his spacecraft.
"Hmm, for a man who likes electric cars, he sure burns a lot of rocket fuel," the girl said.
Musk sent out a series of tweets to address the comment.
"If u saw The Simpsons and wonder why SpaceX doesn't use an electric rocket to reach orbit, it is cuz that is impossible," Musk tweeted, adding in another tweet that the reason for such is the Third Law of Newton.
Musk explained that there is nothing for a spacecraft to "push" against in space, meaning that bodies could only react to ejected mass.
Musk also explained the current impossibility of technologies found in the episode, including space elevators and ion thrusters. Musk, however, did not address other inventions found in the episode, such as a self-packing suitcase.
