Elon Musk pinball machine

Here are some photos from a recent excursion to the Silverball Pinball Museum in Delray Beach, Florida. Statistics that folks in NY, MA, and CA are passionate about watching showed that Florida was in the midst of a raging COVID-19 plague at the time, but patrons were not discouraged nor, typically, masked.

A 1984 Space Shuttle machine reflects the period’s enthusiasm about NASA’s can-do spirit (first launch 1981, ultimate cost 250X more than planned by the best and brightest government scientists (who were following #Science)):

Here’s one from 1976 that celebrates an individual, Elton John:

What if we combine and update these ideas into a modern machine: Elon Musk!

The score is in dollars and the player’s goal is to hit $300 billion for a replay. The game follows the authoritative biography. The first challenge is to move X.com and Confinity together to form PayPal by hitting a bunch of targets. Once that is accomplished, the score goes up by $1.5 billion. The next goal is to move NASA, represented by a lumbering dinosaur, to award a contract to SpaceX. Success results in the score going up by $1.6 billion. Then there is the “build a roadster” challenge in which all of the world’s batteries have to be gathered up by endlessly repeated cycles of hitting bumpers. Once the roadster is built, the Tesla component of the score goes up by $10 billion. Plaintiff Justine Musk comes out from the sidelines to attack Elon in family court. If the player can successfully unlock the prenuptial agreement, she goes away without significantly denting the score (otherwise the player loses 50% to the plaintiff and 10% for legal fees). SolarCity is represented by an albatross and, if captured by the player, results in the score going down by $2 billion. If the ramps are used successfully, a tunnel opens up labeled “Boring Company”. A platoon of Covidcrats pops up to close the Tesla factory. If the player can hit each one with a ball “Reopen Factory and Move to Texas” mode is activated (score boost of $50 billion). Jeff Bezos and Bill Gates run in from the sidelines trying to grab the “world’s richest douche” trophy in the middle. If the player can get the ball into two traps, family court plaintiffs come out to attack both Bezos and Gates, reducing them in size by half. Bill Gates, whether or not reduced in size by half by years of family court action, comes out with a massive syringe and attempts to jab all of the other characters with a COVID-19 vaccine. If the player can get the ball to escape up a ramp, the machine enters “Knucklehead mode“.

Elizabeth Warren pops up in full Native American elder regalia. If the player can hit each feather on a headdress with the ball, Senator Karen disappears. In the “Philip the Sourpuss” special edition of the machine, 600 lb. gorillas named “Toyota”, “Honda”, “Hyundai”, “Ford”, “GM”, and “Volkswagen” come out to attack Elon with electric vehicles that cost less than whatever Tesla can produce, that are much quieter and more comfortable on the highway, and that don’t have an iPad stuck in the middle of the dashboard as the only interface. In this special edition game, there is no way to beat the gorillas and the player’s score goes to $100 billion, reflecting only the value of SpaceX.

Here’s some artwork from another machine at the same venue that can be adapted for the Elizabeth Warren segment:

Readers: What do you think of this idea for a pinball machine? Or it could also be a videogame. In general, wouldn’t it be awesome to have biography-based pinball and videogames?

4 thoughts on “Elon Musk pinball machine

  1. Pretty sure the real thing involves Elon as the pinball with all the widgets being the amerikan people. Eventually the pinball gets sued & taxed into the stone ages, the space program reverts back to the pre Elon days, US goes back to relying on Russia to launch astronauts, all future iterations of the moon program get canceled, & ethanol becomes the fuel of the future.

  2. I have never been so excited to play a new pinball game in my life! You missed your calling as a pinball/arcade game designer. I love how the Elton John machine panders to the heterosexuals in the audience with all the T&A. Aaaah, the ’70s.

  3. Does the prodigious host of this blog covet status of the richest person in the world? First it was Bill Gates wealth calculators, eons ago… Now that Bill Gates dropped off the productive pipeline and speculates with questionable bio – and other deals, working pioneer Elon Musk is in the sights of ironic posts. Why ignoring Blue Origin, which built a building at NASA Kennedy Space Center and sells its merchandise at the Kennedy Space Center gift shop? Because Jeff Bezos spread his wealth to his ex-wife and no longer at the top spot? Elon Musk is not perfect, he is clearly hedging between Chinese Communists and US but this is understandable with current polemical power situation in the USA. Toyota and Honda promise new battery vehicles in the next few years and Elon Musk probably realizes that his role as an electric vehicle pioneer will become not be that profitable quite soon. Maybe SpaceX will keep him on the top. There are no limits in space?

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