Tech juggernauts Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg face off in YouTube comedy sensation Epic Rap Battles of History’s latest episode, returning after an almost two-year hiatus. Created by Peter Shukoff and Lloyd Ahlquist and first launched in 2010, ERB has amassed a sizable following. In their newest lyrical duel, ERB raucously parodies both the former Tesla chairman and the Facebook CEO, pulling no punches.
Though not quite historical figures (yet), Musk and Zuckerberg prove easy targets for ERB. With both figures having somewhat fallen from grace in the public eye over the course of 2018, the satirical channel’s latest match-up is as scathing as it is topical. In fact, Musk and Zuckerberg seem happy to hand ERB the ammunition, with the former having recently slandered a Thailand cave diver and the latter displaying such stiff mannerisms in his public appearances over the years that South Park also caricatured him this past season.
After the announcer gives the series’ characteristically muffled introduction, the Epic Rap Battles of History video jumps right into calling out Zuckerberg (Shukoff) for his robotic behavior during the April Senate hearings over Facebook’s connection to Cambridge Analytica and the 2016 election scandal. Musk (Ahlquist) immediately derides Zuckerberg by comparing him to Star Trek: The Next Generation’s Lieutenant Data, a literally emotionless android. Zuckerberg rebuts that Data was actually a Lieutenant Commander, though he doesn’t expect Musk to “understand an org chart,” poking fun at Musk’s September resignation as Tesla’s chairman over an imprudent tweet that cost the company $20 million. Zuckerberg later turns the heat up to a full roast, saying, “You’re about to be CE - oh sh-t! He got fired!”
Of course, no list of criticisms against Musk would be complete without mentioning his recent cannabis use during a live episode of The Joe Rogan Experience, which Zuckerberg briefly touches upon when saying Musk’s “star is faded - like [him] on a podcast.” Musk lands an equally brief but impactful punch when he boasts that he’s been “flossin’ since [Zuckerberg] double-crossed the Winklevoss twins.” In his closing arguments, Musk also accuses Zuckerberg of having “sold out” his users “for some net worth,” concluding that Facebook is so overrun with Russian bots the 2010 dramatized biopic based on the site’s founding should have been called “The Social Nyet-Work.” However, the most brutal insult of the video is reserved for Zuckerberg, who states that, when using his powers of mass surveillance to probe Musk’s “dark” family history, he “couldn’t clean [Musk’s] daddy’s laundry with Apar-Tide Pods.” This is in reference to murmurs - to which Musk himself has alluded - that his family gained its riches by profiting off of the criminal Afrikaner government in South Africa prior to the abolition of the Apartheid system.
Elon Musk vs. Mark Zuckerberg is a strong return for Epic Rap Battles of History, having not put out an episode of the series since January 2017. If this is any indication of the quality of content to be expected from the satirical webseries in the future, we’ll be waiting ringside.
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Epic Rap Battles of History returns in Spring 2019.
Source: Epic Rap Battles of History
