Culture

Elon Musk Getting Called A ‘Space Karen’ By A Doctor Is The Funniest Thing I’ve Seen All Week

I'm sorry, but Space Karen has truly sent me into orbit.

by Michelle Rennex  17 November 2020
elon musk space karen

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Elon Musk has been against COVID-19 from the very start of the pandemic.

Back in March, the CEO of SpaceX and Tesla, shared that while he believed COVID-19 was real, he had some less than logical ideas about the disease.

First, Musk predicted there would be “close to zero new cases” by the end of April, which is clearly just so very wrong with the current United States cases sitting at 11.2 million. Then, the billionaire also claimed that “kids are essentially immune” to the disease, too.

But sadly for ol’ Elon, not only was he wrong about cases dwindling down, the world’s fifth richest man has now contracted coronavirus himself… maybe. I think?

You see, on Friday Musk tweeted that there was “something extremely bogus going on” when he got tested for COVID-19.

“Was tested for COVID four times today. Two tests came back negative, two came back positive,” Musk tweeted. “Same machine, same tests, same nurse. Rapid antigen test for BD.”

While undecided on whether he had the virus or not, Musk further clarified that he had the “symptoms of a typical cold [but] nothing unusual so far”. The billionaire also implied that the “bogus” testing could be why the US has seen a “major spike” in cases and agreed that “revenues from tests are likely not bogus and very consistent”.

But finally the COVID-19 doubter has been put in his place by a doctor, who has dubbed the rich maniac, “Space Karen”.

After his string of dangerously misinformed claims about the reliability of COVID-19 testing, postdoctoral researcher Emma Bell, who is literally studying bioinformatics aka the analysis and interpretation of biological data, called out Elon Musk’s latest tweets.

Explaining that rapid antigen tests aren’t meant to be used as the only measure of coronavirus in the body, Bell hit Musk where it hurts by declaring the deluded SpaceX CEO to be ‘Space Karen’.

“Rapid antigen tests trade sensitivity for speed. They return a result in <30, but can only detect COVID-19 when you’re absolutely riddled with it,” wrote Bell. “What’s bogus is that Space Karen didn’t read up on the test before complaining to his millions of followers.”

Continuing the dunk, Emma Bell then clarified that the “low false negative results” that Space Karen received were completely in line with the probability of detection.

And to be honest, the Space Karen title was very well-deserved. To tweet out that certain COVID-19 tests are “bogus” and imply that the spike in cases are false all because you couldn’t be assed to do a little research is extreme Karen energy.

You know what else is was very Karen of Elon Musk to do? Actively deciding to refuse to shut down his Tesla factory when California officials advised him to over coronavirus health concerns. And then, instead of listening, threatening lawsuits, opening up anyway, and a bunch of your staff catching COVID. Some extreme Space Karen areas, if you ask me.

But for those that care whether Elon Musk actually has COVID-19 or not, the billionaire did eventually share that despite “getting wildly different results from different labs”, he “most likely” has a “moderate case of COVID”.

So, get well soon, Space Karen. Get well soon.