The Genius

X marks the spite

[A large blond wood space, vaulted like a hangar, though it’s really just a floor of the Twitter – excuse us, X – headquarters in San Francisco. Most of the space is empty and dimly lit – in the shadows we can see sparsely-spaced filing cabinets, flat files, a foosball table, a DJ coffin, and a sled called “Blood Diamond.” At one end, lit by klieg lights, is a huge desk with three iPads fixed on small pedestals and very little else, in front of which are two tattered lawn chairs and behind which, in an enormously outsized Aeron chair, sits ELON MUSK, dressed in Hugo Drax’s hunting outfit from Moonraker. He is waving his fingers in front of his face and moving his lips as if rehearsing a speech. A couple of 50ish lawyers in grey suits and carrying briefcases – hangdog BARKSIDE and petrified LEMON – trudge wearily across the floor and eventually arrive at MUSK’s desk.]

BARKSIDE: Good evening, Mr. Musk.

MUSK: Evening? The sun went down?

[MUSK works some sort of hidden stickshift that smoothly pushes his chair forward and leans him over so he can consult two of the iPads.]

Ah, yes. Good.

[He stickshifts back.]

Sit.

[The lawyers sit.]

I take it you made it happen.

BARKSIDE: In process, Mr. Musk.

MUSK: [Disgustedly] Pah! I should have filed it myself! You’re worse than useless, you lazy pigs!

BARKSIDE: [Ignoring him] We are arranging to file in a jurisdiction without anti-SLAPP laws, sir, which adds time to the process —

MUSK: SLAPP? SLAPP? You don’t get it. This Digital Hat Company or whatever it’s called slandered me. They made me look bad. And that’s slander because, well, I’m not bad, ha ha, now really you don’t think I’m bad, do you, Barksy?

BARKSIDE: Indeed not, sir.