Cyril’s brush with Elon Musk smells

It was, a social media poster remarked, the meeting of Self-made South African billionaire Elon Musk with one of his compatriots, who was gifted his billionaire status by big business.

There is no bigger individual business around at the moment than Elon Musk, the former Pretoria boy who runs Tesla, Space X and X, so perhaps President Cyril Ramaphosa wanted to brush skin with the great man while on his official visit to the United Nations in New York.

Ramaphosa was, apparently, touting for investment in South Africa… using the old patriotic emotional hook.

ALSO READ: Ramaphosa and Elon Musk discuss investment opportunities in South Africa

We wonder if Musk mentioned that his Starlink space-based internet service is not allowed to operate in South Africa because it doesn’t meet the broad-based black economic empowerment threshold?

It was also curious, given that Musk has become outspokenly Trumpist over the past few months, punting the former US president as the only person to vote for in the upcoming elections… and taking every opportunity to trash Trump’s opponent, Kamala Harris, in the process.

But, when it comes to money, there is no such thing as a strongly held belief, is there, comrade President?

On the other hand, self-driving Teslas for your bluelight convoys might save taxpayer money on providing drivers.

X TV

Meanwhile, Elon Musk earlier this month launched X TV, a live-streaming app for smart TVs.

“Beta version of 𝕏 TV is out,” he announced on the X platform.

The app which promises to be a hybrid platform that delivers live content and viral videos has taken on YouTube in a bid for advertising revenue.

ALSO READ: Elon Musk’s X shuts operations in Brazil amid bitter dispute with judge