AUSTIN, Texas — Elon Musk, who recently revealed his desire to found a video game publishing company, promised to eliminate over 700 Pokémon species in a late-night series of memes and rants to his micro-blogging platform X.
“There is so much inefficiency in the Pokédex. So much waste,” said Musk, after sharing an image macro claiming that the decline of the West can be tied directly to the debut of Vanillite. “So many people think that they can fill the hole inside of them with these freakish creatures, but those little monsters are not people. The only way you can fill that void is by producing offspring, who can work in my factories and pay for verified X accounts.”
X user Brian Garnett expressed reservations about Musk’s proclamation, but said that he wasn’t ready to abandon the entrepreneur.
“I don’t like that he’s basically doxxing these Pokémon,” said Garnett. “Like, imagine you’re just a Dedenne trying to go about your day, when suddenly the most influential man in the world calls you ‘they/them Pikachu’ and tells everyone you live on Kalos Route 11. It would be terrifying. On the other hand, I don’t think he’s wrong about everything: GameFreak should be run like a business.”
Gaming pundit Finn Talliver speculated about Musk’s actual impact on the industry.
“Let’s be clear: he has no actual power,” said Talliver. “These aren’t changes he can make. It’s all empty promises, just like Full Self-Driving, the Tesla Bot, and starting a colony on Mars. He’s really good at talking about things he hasn’t done and couldn’t ever do, like being the best ‘Diablo IV’ player in the world. We remember what his ‘Elden Ring’ build looked like when he wasn’t paying people to play the game for him.”
At press time, some commentators speculated that Musk had touched gaming’s “third rail” by threatening to cut funding for ‘Half-Life 3.’
