Olivia Wilde recalls confusing meeting with Elon Musk “before he turned into this creature”
Olivia Wilde has recalled meeting Elon Musk many years ago, which left her feeling “confused”.
Wilde, whose new film The Invite is out in cinemas now, made the comments after reflecting on making Jordan Peterson cry when she admitted that Chris Pine’s character in Don’t Worry Darling was partly inspired by the right-wing academic.
She told The Louis Theroux Podcast, “I was disturbed by what I saw as this kind of misogynistic philosophy that was being obviously weaponised in a way that was leading us to elect Donald Trump twice, and beyond that just empower these groups of people who I think are very dangerous.”
Wilde then elaborated, “I loved creating that world because I thought everything should be manmade. There’s nothing that would’ve grown naturally, ‘cause the whole idea is that we did this. We are more powerful than nature, which I think is a big part of what these guys talk about.”
This then brought her on to Musk and his outlook on the world, adding, “I mean, Elon [Musk] talking about how we don’t have enough people, the world is underpopulated, and we could handle another billion people. If you ever wanna be really disturbed, and I’m sure you’ve seen this, but the conversation between Peterson and Elon, um, couple of years ago…”
She then opened up on her personal experience with Musk, which happened “before he turned into this creature,” and said of her view of the Tesla owner, “I really resent him now, I really deeply resent him.”
Wilde was invited to meet him at Tesla X’s Los Angeles headquarters “because I wanted to see the rocket ships” and because Musk was “interested in donating money to an organisation that I was a part of in Haiti that was building hospitals and schools”.
While Musk “did donate a little bit of money” to the cause in Haiti, Wilde did not particularly enjoy her experience in his company, admitting, “I was kind of confused by him.”
Nevertheless, Wilde is shocked that Musk has become the figure that he is today, adding, “I never would’ve predicted that he would go the path that he’s gone now because he did seem really smart.”
In the same interview, Wilde opened up about The Invite and explained her view that “people are getting married less, people are having kids less, this threatens the establishment.”
In a four-star review of Wilde’s new movie, Far Out wrote, “Most movies about relationships are ultimately about the dynamic, not the people. The Invite provides four distinct characters who play off of each other but function in isolation, too. All of them have their own story arc, and you could imagine entire movies centred on each of them.”
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