“It all started with red wine and the World Cup,” said Musk, back in the U.S., staring at his hand.
“Admittedly, I was a bit giddy from watching Messi score and knowing I could drink alcohol when no one else in the country could, but MLS—that what I call MBS [Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman], because I think acronyms are really weird and MLS stands for Major League Soccer in America. We were at the World Cup in his country. Anyway, you get it. Hilarious.”
“When MLS offered me, I mean SpaceX, a cool $4.7 billion to build 327 long-range rockets as part of Saudi Arabia’s new Khashoggi-class launch rockets for their expanding space program, I was immediately on board,” explained Musk.
“It wasn’t until later that someone at SpaceX asked if these rockets could be used to actually deliver weapons of war—like, nuclear weapons to other places on earth instead of actual people to places like Mars. That’s very possible, but what the Saudis actually do with the rockets is none of our business. After all, nuclear weapons don’t kill people. People kill people. It’s why we all need to go to space.”