Elon Musk is getting into the comedy game with a mysterious new venture. The Daily Beast is reporting that Musk hired former Onion editor-in-chief Cole Bolton and executive editor Ben Berkley sometime late last year to work on a “secret new project,†which is currently in development in Los Angeles with Musk’s financial backing. Bolton and Berkley have since poached three former Onion writers and one “longtime editor†to work on the new project, which all parties coyly confirmed to The Daily Beast, although without giving away any solid details. Here’s Bolton and Berkley’s statement:
“We can confirm that we have learned nothing from prevailing trends in media and are launching a brand-new comedy project.â€
And here’s Musk’s comment:
“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.â€
The Daily Beast’s report also reveals that Musk was interested in buying The Onion in 2014 back before it was ultimately purchased by Univision in early 2016, but he ultimately decided against it because he “wasn’t interested in the outlet’s entertainment news site The A.V. Club.â€Â What form Musk’s new comedy project will take on is currently top secret, but sources speculated to The Daily Beast it would most likely be another satirical news site like The Onion, and Musk will “not have editorial oversight of the project.†It’s definitely not the most welcoming time for a brand new internet comedy venture, but having a billionaire on your side like Musk certainly can’t hurt.
In other Musk-comedy news, we still haven’t found out about what he and Nathan Fielder were up to back in 2016, and last month, Fielder reignited the mystery:
Guess we’ll have to wait and see on both fronts.
UPDATE: ClickHole has hit back at yesterday’s report with a new piece published today, and it’s perfect. Read it here: “I Did Everything I Could To Buy ClickHole, But Their Editorial Integrity Won Out Over My Billion-Dollar Offers, And I Respect Them Even More For That (By Elon Musk)â€