While Elon’s then-partner Grimes was recording her part in the game as cyborg popstar Lizzy Wizzy, the erratic tech billionaire turned up with an antique firearm to “insist” on being included in the game. “The studio guys were like sweating,” Grimes is quoted as saying. Musk adds “I told them that I was armed but not dangerous”.

Apparently, the developers relented at the time, though it’s unclear if Musk did actually get the cameo in the end.

  •  frog 🐸   ( @frog@beehaw.org ) 
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    1439 months ago

    So… basically, Musk turned up at a studio and threatened the devs with a gun (which antique or not, could have been loaded and functional - shooting with antique guns is a thing) to make them put him in the game?

    I know there’s a massive cultural difference around guns between the UK and the US, but I’m genuinely struggling to see how “a man has turned up to our studio with a gun because he wants us to put him in our game” doesn’t warrant a call to the police.

    • US gun owner here:

      It 100% warrants a call to the police.

      Sounds like assault with a deadly weapon, and if he took it out to show, then it’s brandishing. It doesn’t matter if it was non-firming because the target didn’t know that, and typically these laws are written to be what “a reasonable person would believe”.

      Also, at the time this happened he was a known user of Marijuana and thus not eligible to own a firearm, as that rule had not yet been struck down.

      •  frog 🐸   ( @frog@beehaw.org ) 
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        259 months ago

        Hence why, when calling the police, you wouldn’t say who it is. Just “a man” or “a person” has come in with the gun. Which happens to be true, since until proved otherwise, Musk can indeed be accurately described as a person. Whether he manages to wiggle out of it later is less important than the immediate problem of getting the gun-wielding lunatic out of the studio.

    • It’s unclear if this even happened in the US; CD Projekt is Polish…

      Also consider that the gun wan apparently, no shit, a flintlock pistol. They may have thought it was a prop or something.

    • Whether or not the gun was loaded, the person wielding it sure was, and it’s much easier to say “Call the cops on him” if you’re not worried about whether that guy might be rich and vindictive enough to ruin your life over it.

      No matter whether Musk would have actually had any way of doing so, the fear of the possibility alone can be enough to cow you into compliance.

      •  frog 🐸   ( @frog@beehaw.org ) 
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        99 months ago

        There are ways of surreptitiously sending a message to, say, someone who isn’t in the room, without making it a very obvious call to the police. Or, for that matter, just dial the number on your phone and don’t say anything other than “your gun is really impressive but I’m a bit uncomfortable with having it pointed in this direction”. The operator on the other end will know what to do with that.

        Because another way Musk could ruin your life is shooting you while showing off and waving a gun around, given that he is immature and arrogant enough to have loaded it, and reckless enough for his finger to slip.