I stand by... well... Myself

This is why you don't have your scifi shows praise people who are still alive irl...
Seriously David Tennant's doctor praising JK aged horribly... espcially since Tennant is a trans ally who absolutely hates her guts.
- I forgot about the JK praise. The second you mentioned it all I could hear was "Good Ol' JK!"
  
  Yeah, that is a good episode, but holy shit that aged like milk. The only thing that really saves it for me is the fact that David Tennant is a trans Ally and has publicly spoken against JK Rowling, one of the few United Kingdom based celebrities to do so.
- It did work out when Star Trek had Stephen Hawking appear though.
  Stephen Hawking is the only person to have played himself in the entirety of Star Trek as well.
  
  Wasn't there an episode where Kirk met Shatner or something? After finding an alternate reality where it was all a show
  No no... remembered as I was typing..
  I was thinking of when Dave Lister met Craig Charles
- It's a risky idea but it's a common formula to help ground a sci-fi series.
  Name a relevant historical figure fans should know.
  Name a relevant living figure fans may know.
  Name a relevant fictional figure fans should know.
- who are still alive irl
  You think the already deceased are safe? Don't you remember the controversy when they named the space telescope after James Webb?
  
  NASA not naming future buildings and projects after people is a great result.
- I've watched all episodes of Doctor Who, but I don't remember who's JK?
  
  JK Rowling, author of Harry Potter.

The fact that there are two references to Musk in Discovery is a bit disheartening. There's this one from Lorca but another when Tilly says she went to a school named after Musk.
I choose to believe that in this alternate universe he kept his mouth shut.
- Think of all the shitty historical figures that are celebrated today because a century later no one remembers what they were actually like
  
  Or people do remember but it's "not polite" to bring it up. How many schools are named after Colombus? Or Edison?
  
  At least Henry Ford was a successful businessman while he moonlighted as a fascist. I bet SpaceX is his only company that will survive, and he doesn't run it.
  
  It's my estimation that every man ever got a statue made of him was one kind of sommremoved or another. Ain't about you, Jayne. It's about what they need.
  -Malcon Reynolds
  
  That's very true. However those people weren't shouting their horrific views to the world through an internationally used service. They also weren't reported on by worldwide media and memed to high heaven. There's a pretty solid record at this point of Elon being a cuntwaffle. Hard to forget that.
  
  Anyone who respects Churchill.
  
  Doesn't even have to bei a century. Plenty of people thinking Bill Gates is a cool dude, despite the shady and outright illegal shit Microsoft pulled off to make him rich.
- @Stamets I choose to believe thre was someone else by this name who wasn't an idiot. They mean the 22nd Century Elon Musk.
  
  I would love it if they actually did that.
  
  Elaan musc
  
  I mean, Musk IRL became famous in the late 1990s through to 2020s. What do we know about that time period in the Star Trek universe?
  I think it's pretty safe to say that even if their Musk is the same "person", his upbringing and circumstances would be so different that it's not hard to believe that even if he was the same narcissistic arsehole, he did end up using that in a direction that genuinely furthered humanity's technical progress, if only as a convenient byproduct.
- An alternative timeline in which Elon isn't a huge piece of shit. Hard to fathom, but it's the only way I can see that working.
  
  It's near impossible to not be a piece of shit if your a billionaire. The only way to get that much money is to use people's necks as ladder rungs the whole way up, then destroy the ladder after you got to the top.
  
  Honestly though. That or he listened to Public Relations people and decided not to be his whole damn self.
  
  Maybe he learned to not be an asshole during the Eugenics Wars of the 1990s.
- I've not seen the newer star trek shows yet, but given the whole global war stuff that happens in the star trek universe between now and the time the stories are usually set in, perhaps crucial details about who Musk was were lost to history, and he's just remembered for something spaceX did at some point, or he's had a pr campaign that was successful at getting history books of the future to portray him in a more flattering light?
- This line was foreshadowing Lorca’s origin. You see, mirror Musk was actually competent, making him the precise inverse of real Musk.
  I don’t care that the timing is suspect and there’s another Musk reference in Discovery, I’ll die on this hill.
  
  Nah, Mirror Musk was exactly the same as he is now.
  It is just that lying, bribing and being narcissistic are admiral traits in the Mirror Universe
- Tilly says she went to a school named after Musk.
  I firmly believe that someone had to talk the writer responsible out of making Tilly a graduate of Bit Connect High School.

It wasn't so long ago that everyone was singing his praises. I haven't seen a reputation squandered so quickly since Game of Thrones.
- I am still glad my natural distrust of billionaires who praise private enterprise as the ultimate expression of progress and freedom paid off.. as per usual.
  
  That there is a good instinct
- Nah.
  People outside of tech maybe and that's because non-tech media treat venture capitalists like they want to be treated. Which is that they're "tech geniuses".
  Really they're just the money that pays workers and take all the credit for their oversized egos.
  If he'd have stuck to buying startups like lottery tickets and kept his mouth shut, 100 years from now people would talk about like how Edison gets talked about to school kids today: no problems mentioned and gets credit for everything
  
  I'm not a techie but it was clear from the start he's just an edgy 14 yr old but with money.
  I wouldn't have a problem with that if he'd just own up to it but he keeps acting like some morally superior being.
- I worked in avionics for more than a decade starting in the mid-00s. It was well-known that SpaceX lured young, naïve aeronautics engineering grads with the promise of working at the next NASA, worked them 80+ hours a week for less than market compensation for 3-5 years, then fired them as they inevitably burned out.

This was real dialogue in the show? Ewwww!
- The first picture shows real dialogue from the show. It can be somewhat explained by >!the character who said it eventually turning out to be from the mirror universe!< but it's still a terrible writing decision.
  
  Wasn't there a throwaway line about Tilly going to Musk high school or something too, though? Ick.
  
  It would have been great if he outed himself by acting like Musk was someone worthy of praise.
- Another reason to hate Discovery

This is what is known in the business as a native ad. It is an advertisement disguised as content but really its a paid endorsement from Elon`s PR firm.
The fact that it was made into a meme and is being discussed here is proof that it was a successful ad.
- More reason to shame the show and the studio for it then.

Remember when Elon got a cameo in Iron Man 2 in exchange for letting them shoot some scenes at the SpaceX factory? Not sure if that’d happen anymore.
“Elon, how’s it going? Those Merlin engines are amazing.”
“Thank you. I’ve got an idea for an electric jet.”
“You do?”
“Yeah.”
“Then we’ll make it work.”
- I recently rewatched that movie and had completely forgotten he had that cameo, my eyes rolled so hard I almost couldn’t finish the movie.
  
  Larry Ellison from Oracle had a cameo too. It was gross.
- That's the same method Trump used to get movies to give him cameo roles. Wanna use the building? Give the egomaniac a pointless cameo.
  
  I mean, its probably a better deal for the studio if tge egimaniac in question only depands a cameo
- You'd think a big smart genius like Musk would know that the idea of an electric jet is dumb even for a movie line.
  The principle of using exhaust to generate thrust requires exhaust. Electric motors don't make any exhaust.

That scene is from 2017. Back then he was still revered as "the real life Iron Man".
- By idiots maybe. I imagine he may have paid money for this mention. Like he did with iron man.
  
  That's pretty revisionist. He's an asshat now but wasn't always seen that way.
  In 2017, Musk was still pretty popular with liberals. He advocated for a carbon taxes, a universal basic income, and AI regulation. Tesla was still leading the game in EV production. SpaceX was re-supplying the ISS and set to free the US from Soyuz. He supported Hillary in 2016 and quit Trump's advisory council because he withdrew from the Paris Climate Accords.
  It was only around and after COVID he took a hard turn and became particularly unpopular with the left. When this episode came out it made sense, and also fit well with Star Trek's typical formula of "past historical figure, current notable figure, future fictional figure."
- Also

Yeah, that line aged terribly

It rules that the Mirror Universe guy was a Musk fan. Possibly not an intentional dig, but it's pitch-perfect in retrospect. I love Lorca. What a fun character.
- Mirror universe Musk was actually a great guy who selflessly tried to improve humanity, and mirror-Lorca calls him a great man because that's who good people in the mirror universe would praise.
  
  Bahaha, in the mirror universe, Elon Musk died a pauper while trying to prevent the eugenics wars.
  
  Mirror universe Musk was a proletarian hero who organized a mining industry revolution.
- It totally wasn't an intentional dig, but damn if the reference didn't age like a fine wine.

- I feel like they had a really good opportunity to foreshadow Lorca being from where he is by making him say Von Braun instead of Musk.
  It'd be one of those "of course this guy thought an SS officer was a good guy!" Moments
  
  I feel like they had a really good opportunity to foreshadow Lorca being from where he is by making him say Von Braun instead of Musk.
  Is there really that much difference between an Operation Paperclip nazi and an Apartheid emerald prince?
- Lol. This was Season 1, Episode 4.
  The problems with their shitty-ass script certainly weren't budgetary.
  
  Maybe budget allocation. Gotta have a big CGI space battle, right?

Heavy foreshadowing

I've never been that big of a Trek fan and just started doing a chronological binge of the shows starting with Enterprise. My reaction to the Elon references when I got to Discovery was "well that aged like milk". That doofus really ruined his reputation to simp for Nazis and dictators and became just another subject for Behind the Bastards to laugh at.
- Chronological order has to be the worst way to get into Star Trek lol
  Enterprise is not popular (though I personally didn't mind it), and Discovery is terrible. Then you go from the absolutely amazing Strange New Worlds, to the hokiest Original Series. You must be getting whiplash

every brazillian crying in rage about Santos Dumont
- I lived with a Brazilian dude many years ago. He had just moved to Canada, where I'm from, and was going to university. Santos-Dumont got brought up at some point and I never forgot about him. It would be pretty damn cool to have Star Trek recognize it where most people don't.
- His plane was built in Paris, so maybe the French also have some feelings regarding that matter

It's sad they chose his name over Henry Coanda, Sikorsky, Frank Whittle or even Wernher von Braun.
- Fuck Wernher von Braun though.
  
  It wasn't his department!

Yeah, I think I'm officially tired of seeing this one line retreaded over and over again.
We don't have to constantly obsess over that dumbass in here too, do we? Can we please have an indefinite moratorium on this one particular meme?
- Has it been posted to this instance before? I'm unaware of that. If so then I apologize. However you are the only person on this thread who has voiced such concerns.
  Either way I don't plan on reposting memes myself. I just have a large collection and I'm trying to make people laugh. I'm sorry I was unsuccessful with you. I hope others I post don't have the same effect. I do hope you have a great rest of your day though. And I know that tone is hard to convey via text, but I'm genuinely trying to be friendly.
  
  It is funny...I bet some of the show makers regret putting in that line
- I mean.. Successfully privatizing reusable rocketry and making domestic launches possible in the states again is amazing even if you hate him.
  
  Not his accomplishments though, they're accomplishments of engineers he profits from and takes credit from

That lore definitely comes from the Terran Federation. No way Musk is remembered as anything but an embarrasment by then.
- Unfortunately Tilly mentions a school named after Musk in Season 2
  
  I mean I ignore Discovery anyway, the modern method of story telling does not fit well and leaves little time for focus on the characters. It instead opts for season long existential plots to grab viewers' attention. Which cramps character development and our attachments to them. And that sucks cause a lot of Discovery's characters are cool.

Replace elon with Kelly Johnson

To me STD, Picard and SNW aren't cannon
EDIT: In hindisght I should have added ENT to the list but I forgot
- Well, you're wrong. But have fun with that? Also its DSC. Unless you're calling TOS STTOS.
  Kind of expect more of a Star Trek "fan" than being so close minded. Especially when Leonard Nimoy openly embraced changes to Trek canon.
  But like I said. Have fun with that lol
  
  Didn't Leonard Nimoy die 2 years before DSC was released? Also DSC changed a LOT of Star Trek lore, the other shows did not
- To me everything after the cage isn't cannon. Checkmate atheists.

As much of a fucking clown he is, he did master reusable rockets and dominates the space market right now.
- No, mostly it was the government funded engineers and scientists that work at SpaceX that mastered reusable rockets.
  
  And if it wasn't for Elon, they never would have. NASA was completely fucking demoralized and broken back then, and whether you want to admit it or not, Elon Musk rejuvenated the American space program with SpaceX. Just because you don't like the man doesn't mean his contributions to humanity are not real.
  
  If Elon Musk did not exist, would SpaceX still exist? You know the answer. The guy is a chud, but he has his place in history.