Rage 2 takes a jab at Elon Musk in a secret bunker mission

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It's not a great dunk, especially for one of the easiest people to dunk on in the world, but it'll do.

Elon Musk, Rick and Morty fan and billionaire CEO of Tesla and SpaceX who smoked weed once, is an indecently rich man who could use his money to solve a lot of problems today, but instead chooses to make electric cars for other rich people and crash rockets into boats. And how he's the butt of a bad joke in Rage 2 as part of a secret mission.

While wandering the wasteland, I notice some alluring bunker doors embedded in the side of a mountain and as we all know, if there's a bunker there's probably a lonely, mad person inside (or at least the skeleton of one).

The location of the secret bunker. 

This particular lonely, mad person goes by Elton Tusk, as the data pads strewn about the bunker say. He's the former—well, technically, current CEO of Tusk Industries, if you want to continue to believe in capitalist hierarchies in the post-apocalypse. 

Posters reference space travel and eco-pods and nanotrites, data pads detail Tusk's great imagination, innovative technologies, and obscene wealth—all of which are directly contributing to the power struggles in Rage 2's apocalypse scenario. Let's line up the evidence:

  • Elton Tusk = Elon Musk
  • CEO of a company researching space travel, nanomachines, useless things
  • Rich guy deemed a "great science mogul"

It's an Elon Musk bit, no doubt about it. 

As I move through the bunker, Tusk harries me and hails himself, threatening my small stature while boasting about power and intellect beyond comprehension.

I'm called a few more names before I enter a large circular room. Elton's going to sic his robots on me, but they're no longer functional. I like to think they abandoned him. One falls to the ground, a crude machine that looks like a sharp tooth with handle bars.  

Elton is in the next room, and as expected, he's much smaller and sadder than his bombast. 

Dude's a brain in a jar. Not only that, but the cyber void he's been living in all this time has emptied out. What used to be filled with light and sound and information is now darkness.  

It's not a particularly strong joke on Avalanche's part because it lacks specificity and more direct jabs at Elon's many public blunders, but it's a tiny, warm pocket of cosmic justice in a cold world. I'll take it. 

James Davenport
James Davenport

James is stuck in an endless loop, playing the Dark Souls games on repeat until Elden Ring and Silksong set him free. He's a truffle pig for indie horror and weird FPS games too, seeking out games that actively hurt to play. Otherwise he's wandering Austin, identifying mushrooms and doodling grackles.