Science

Elon Musk Claims His Mysterious Cyborg Dragon Tesla Is “Almost Done”

We're not quite sure what to make of this one. 

by James Dennin
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Even for a CEO who’s given to cryptic social media posts, Elon Musk’s pronouncement that, “btw”, he was working on a cyborg dragon was met with some confusion. Was he talking about the Dragon Capsule, which shuttles cargo to the International Space Station? Some sort of “not a flame thrower”-esque side project? Something else entirely?

SpaceX and Tesla fans got an update over the weekend, with Musk Tweeting that the “Cyborg Dragon Tesla” was almost done. Careful observers will note that the original post made no mention of Tesla, giving speculators an extra beat of detail as to what the hell Musk is actually talking about.

So what can we say about the Cyborg Dragon Tesla for sure? Musk posted his reply next to a thread of jokes about a so-called Mad Max mode on the Tesla Semi, which supposedly will enable more blind spot aggression when making use of semi-autonomous driving features.

That additional context, plus the new Tesla mention suggests that some sort of desert-dwelling vehicle may be in the works, possibly a collaboration between the two twin pillars of Musk’s ambitions, Tesla and SpaceX. As Elektrek’s Fred Lampert pointed out, Tesla’s battery powered cars already sort of resemble the battery powered rovers that are currently traversing the planet, sending back information to Earth.

It would make sense for Tesla to chip in on SpaceX’s plans to man a mission to Mars, particularly by working on any components that bear a resemblance to its batteries or vehicles. Of course, that still doesn’t explain the “cyborg” element of the Tweet, which implies mechanically enhanced humans. When Musk first Tweeted about the Dragon cyborg, some observers wondered whether he was talking about some sort of human-brain interface.

On the other hand, Musk may have also just been Tweeting through the Sunday scarys. As one Twitter observer noted in the replies, Sundays tend to be when the entrepreneur posts his most head scratching Tweets.

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