Hello, Wheat & Tares readers! As your self-appointed citizen journalist, I am bringing you the following exclusive interview with tycoon Elon Musk. Musk sat down with me to discuss his surprise purchase of the Kirtland Temple.
Safe to say all of us on the bloggernacle assumed if the Kirtland Temple was ever sold by its owners, the Community of Christ, that it would surely be bought by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. But as Mark Twain once said, “Heavenly Father has blessed us, even the very elect, to live in interesting times.”
For an undisclosed sum, Musk is now the owner and CEO of the Kirtland Temple, its visitors center, and museum. On the strength of my Twitter Blue checkmark, I persuaded Elon to give his first post-purchase interview to Wheat & Tares.
Elon Musk Interview Transcript
CITIZEN JOURNALIST
Elon, thank you for agreeing to this interview.
MUSK
My pleasure.
CITIZEN JOURNALIST
What a year for you! First buying Twitter and now this. Let’s talk about your purchase of the Kirtland Temple. This edifice remains a hallowed site for many faiths which trace their origins to 19th-century prophet Joseph Smith. Our readers are curious, some very worried, about what you plan to do now that you own the temple.
MUSK
There’s nothing to fear. My task is simply to maximize the Kirtland Temple’s potential as a venue for protecting the light of consciousness.
CITIZEN JOURNALIST
Your plans to overhaul the building are being described as excessive and even drastic. Some say when you are done, it won’t even be the Kirtland Temple anymore. Many of us fear the building may become an aggressively monetized shadow of its best self. As one Reddit user put it: “Elon is going to turn the Restoration’s first temple into the Great and Spacious Center for Virtual Reality Whoredoms.” How do you respond to such criticism?
MUSK
Actually, that name sounds great. I’ll pay for the neon-lit marquee myself. Have you been to Kirtland? The town could use some neon lights.
CITIZEN JOURNALIST
Are you at all concerned about overengineering the temple’s upgrades? Making too many changes too quickly? Is it possible you have not properly considered the long-term effects on an institution and the people who love it?
MUSK
I’m not so much worried about overengineering; I’d be more concerned if I failed to overengineer. Really, if you think about it, engineering is the object and design of our existence.
CITIZEN JOURNALIST
Okay… Not surprisingly, your purchase of the Kirtland Temple has taken the bloggernacle by storm.
MUSK
You all have to complain about something.
CITIZEN JOURNALIST
I guess you could say our policy is never to apologize for critical thinking. Even the most prominent podcasters in our midst have weighed in on the subject, some heaping major criticism on you.
MUSK
Well, like everywhere else in the media, elites are trying to undermine my work. That’s why I want to turn the Kirtland Temple into a bastion of free speech, to benefit faith-driven citizen journalists such as yourself.
CITIZEN JOURNALIST
Gee, thanks. Let’s listen to an excerpt from a recent Mormon Stories podcast. In this episode, John Dehlin interviews John Hamer, a scholar who consulted the Community of Christ on its sale of the Kirtland Temple.
Excerpt From Mormon Stories Podcast
DEHLIN
My sources are telling me that this is just an elaborate way for Musk’s righthand man, BYU alum Jared Birchall, to operate the temple in ways that give preferred access to the LDS Church.HAMER
Well, I can’t speak to the assertions of your unnamed sources, howev—DEHLIN
One of them works in the Church Office Building.HAMER
Okay, well, that puts your source in proximity to people of various levels of influence. Still, to your concern—a concern with which I sympathize—I know people are worried that with Musk taking over operation of the Kirtland Temple, it might be altered in historically misleading ways. Even if he does, the Community of Christ’s historic sites director has taken high resolution images of the entire temple, inside and out. These images will be stitched together into HD 3D format and uploaded to the metaverse. Going forward, it will be possible through virtual reality for members of all Restoration traditions to visit the authentic temple any time they wish.
CITIZEN JOURNALIST
Elon, would you care to respond to John Dehlin’s accusation of undue LDS influence?
MUSK
Wouldn’t care to. But what I will do is speak to a major concern regarding the Kirtland Temple’s woefully inefficient use of windows.
CITIZEN JOURNALIST
What’s wrong with the temple’s windows? They’re so big you don’t even need lightbulbs on a sunny day.
MUSK
Yes, but that’s insufficient to fully address the temple’s 21st century power needs. I’m supremely confident we can do even better. Why settle for energy in the kilo range when the potential exists for giga, or even tera levels of power?
CITIZEN JOURNALIST
Solar panels on the roof?
MUSK
We’ll strip out the second floor to accommodate banks of lithium-iron-phosphate batteries.
CITIZEN JOURNALIST
But the second floor of the Kirtland Temple was set aside for education.
MUSK
Essentially, it’s a dumbed-down duplicate of the first floor. This is the key point of design on which I and Joseph Smith disagree. Who needs a second set of priesthood pulpits? It’s redundant.
CITIZEN JOURNALIST
How will you pay the electricity bill?
MUSK
We’re already collecting fees via site tours. But revenue does need to increase.
CITIZEN JOURNALIST
How do you plan to increase it?
MUSK
We will replace the windows with digital screens running announcements for future Kirtland Temple events and other value-added products.
CITIZEN JOURNALIST
You’re replacing the temple windows with giant pop-up ads?
MUSK
We need to pay the bills somehow!
CITIZEN JOURNALIST
Seems a… unique way to provide visitors a pilgrimage experience.
MUSK
Power to the people!
CITIZEN JOURNALIST
As the Community of Christ did, will you maintain the Kirtland Temple as a welcoming and affordable gathering place for all Restoration traditions?
MUSK
I’ll do one better. Within the next five years, we plan to put the temple on a NASA-style crawler and take it directly to the people. No one has to travel to Ohio again. The temple comes to them.
CITIZEN JOURNALIST
So your end game is turning the temple into a holy Sprinter van?
MUSK
Tesla van.
CITIZEN JOURNALIST
Ah.
MUSK
The level of touristic innovation we can achieve with this edifice is unparalleled.
CITIZEN JOURNALIST
Let’s put this purchase in the broader context of Mormonism. I’d like to share an excerpt from the Sunstone Mormon History Podcast. In it, leading historian Benjamin E. Park is discussing his research with Executive Director Lindsay Hansen Park and Mormon historian Bryan Buchanan.
Excerpt From Sunstone Mormon History Podcast
BENJAMIN
To some, Elon’s purchase of the Kirtland Temple amounts to more than a mere co-opting of Mormon history; it constitutes a calculated attempt to inaugurate a new era of right-wing Latter-day Saint apologetic chicanery. I document this trend in my upcoming book—Crypto Kirtland: The Rise of Yeah-Buddy Mormonism.LINDSAY
So, best case scenario, this is a chance for all of us to Mormon in new and ever more digital ways. And the worst case scenario?BRYAN
HD, 3D, Zip-A-Dee-Doo-Dah-Day of the Lord!LINDSAY
Time to shout hosanna to somebody’s name.BRYAN
Y’know, listeners, I think Lindsay wants to see Elon Musk grow a Brigham Young-style beard.LINDSAY
I do not deny the merits of said pioneering facial hair.BRYAN
Hey, Benjamin. Lindsay totally wants to see BY’s beard in HD 3D.LINDSAY
UHD anyone?!BRYAN
Can’t wait to get these two together on the metaverse.BENJAMIN
Right. Uh… so about the Kirtland Temple…
CITIZEN JOURNALIST
Elon, that was a tragic recording of three of our best thought leaders punchily podcasting after midnight while high on Diet Coke. I hope you appreciate the seismic shockwaves your billion-dollar impulse buying is sending through the bloggernacle.
MUSK
Honestly, I don’t see why low-performing bloggers should continue blogging.
CITIZEN JOURNALIST
Mm-hmm. Speaking for many progressives, I’m out of cheeks to turn. As we near the end of this interview, I’m hoping our readers will forgive me for burying the lede. Elon, you’ve purchased the Kirtland Temple at a price said to be billions of dollars above its current real estate value. How were you able to afford this purchase?
MUSK
My investing team has its own currency.
CITIZEN JOURNALIST
So, you literally made your own fortune.
MUSK
Yes, administered through our new Crypto Safety Society blockchain. The currency is backed by the complete confidence of its bearers and may be used for purchases at the visitor center bookstore.
CITIZEN JOURNALIST
Even for copies of books like Mormon Enigma?
MUSK
Those have been recycled to create shelf space for my new memoir: All Bros Know My History.
CITIZEN JOURNALIST
Okay. I guess there is nothing left to say but… In the name of Elon Musk—
MUSK
Amen.
Questions for Discussion:
It should go without saying that the above post is satire, and the inclusion of various real-life figures is only parody—an acceptable exercise of free speech. On Twitter, however, Elon Musk insists that free speech come with a caveat: people must include the word parody in their name if they are going to engage in it. In fairness, it can be argued some Twitter users have used the cover of parody to engage in outright misinformation. So, good readers, a couple questions for you:
When it comes to parody, how far is too far? And why is it too far?
Is Elon Musk & Joseph Smith a comparison worth making? Why or why not? What other religious leaders might Elon be comparable to?
Wheat & Tares 
Wow, first Twitter, now the Kirtland Temple! What next, Elon, BYUI?
This is hilarious. I had a great time reading and chortling along. Thank you.
In a perfect world I think people would be consistently able to identify parody just by looking at it (without a “parody” label). Unfortunately we live in a society in which people mistake The Onion articles for reality—even when the headline is “42 Million Dead In Bloodiest Black Friday Weekend On Record.”We just don’t have the level of literacy and critical thinking among our populace to distinguish fact from fiction from funny papers.
“Is Elon Musk & Joseph Smith a comparison worth making?”
I think the comparison is appropriate in that they’re both “big idea guys” who grew further out of touch with reality the more power they got (you did a great job of lampooning that here). Both have enjoyed a cult of personality and have been more than ok with throwing their weight around to get what they want, though Musk, harassment accusations notwithstanding, probably hasn’t done the more unspeakable things that JS did.
Just coming to this…bravo.
This is hilarious, Jake! Well done!
Goodness, I’ve been meaning to drop a note for a couple days now. Thanks to each of you for sharing your reactions.
p, I think many are asking the same basic question. Many of us who have been enthusiastic about Elon’s work on SpaceX in particular are wondering if there isn’t a limit to how much one CEO should take on. Has that limit already been past?
Kirkstall, thanks for summing it all up so well. Especially in pointing out that who a leader is today, who many of us now resent, hasn’t always been exactly this way.
Benjamin and Ziff, honored to have you both drop by and respond as well. Having seen some additional reactions on social networking, I’m glad this post seems to have found its readers. Thanks again!