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Speaking to Wired, Glass Onion director and writer Rian Johnson said it was a "horrible accident" that the film debuted amid controversy over billionaire Elon Musk's stewardship of Twitter.
Johnson wrote the companion film to his 2019 hit Knives Out at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic and it features a scene-stealing performance by actor Edward Norton in the role of Miles, an egotistical tech billionaire who lures an eccentric cast of characters to a Greek island for help solving the mystery of his own murder.
Miles is the tech bro who "refuses to acknowledge when his big ideas are bad—or even dangerous," as Wired wrote in a tweet, which underscores the film's kicker he is far from a genius and more of a lucky moron.
\u201cNo spoilers here, but this tech bro refuses to acknowledge when his big ideas are bad\u2014or even dangerous. https://t.co/xV22NC8nTT\u201d— WIRED (@WIRED) 1671813428
Conservative commentators like Daily Wire founder Ben Shapiro have responded negatively to the character.
Shapiro in particular accused Johnson of taking inspiration from Musk to write the character.
\u201cWhether or not it was Rian Johnson\u2019s intention, I find it hilarious that Ben Shapiro watched Glass Onion & immediately assumed the idiot billionaire had to be Elon Musk\u201d— Peter Scattini (@Peter Scattini) 1672082534
However, Johnson notes he started writing the film well before Musk acquired Twitter and generated controversy for using the platform to silence his critics and peddle misinformation.
He told Wired he never wrote Glass Onion—which is currently streaming on Netflix—with Musk in mind.
“It’s so weird. It’s very bizarre. I hope there isn’t some secret marketing department at Netflix that’s funding this Twitter takeover.”
“There’s a lot of general stuff about that sort of species of tech billionaire that went directly into [the movie]. But obviously, it has almost a weird relevance in exactly the current moment."
"A friend of mine said, ‘Man, that feels like it was written this afternoon.’ And that’s just sort of a horrible, horrible accident, you know?”
But accident or not, timing could not be more perfect as far as Twitter users were concerned.
\u201cLynn and I watched "Glass Onion" tonight, and man, if I were Elon Musk, I'd be pissed\u201d— Tom Nichols (@Tom Nichols) 1672546492
\u201cGlass onion is basically the Elon musk story but prettier\u201d— Molly Jong-Fast (@Molly Jong-Fast) 1672114586
\u201cWatching Glass Onion and wondering if the lawyers vetoed an actual anagram of Elon Musk for the Miles Bron character\u201d— Elin Roddy (@Elin Roddy) 1672692322
\u201cok I get that Elon Musk was spiraling long before buying twitter but it's actually very difficult to accept that Glass Onion wasn't written and filmed in the past couple of months\u201d— Dev (Parody) (@Dev (Parody)) 1672020479
\u201cknives out: glass onion is an exact portrayal of what would happen if elon musk actually had 7 friends\u201d— sleepy (@sleepy) 1671954823
\u201cthe fact that glass onion was written before andrew tate reached peak popularity and elon musk wasnt the center of the conversation yet is so funny because no way anyone can watch it now without think of how the film jabs at them\u201d— rizz lansangan (@rizz lansangan) 1671987677
\u201cMe in the first half of glass onion: oh this guy is like if Elon Musk was actually a genius\n\nMe in the 2nd half: ah yeah there it is\u201d— The Jolly Green Giants and The Shtty Beatles (@The Jolly Green Giants and The Shtty Beatles) 1671894399
Johnson did tell Wired that he used the archetype of a tech billionaire to write "the type of friends that they would have," which helped the "tenor of everything came together."
He said his "intent was to accurately reflect what it’s been like to have our heads in the middle of the cultural sphere" since 2016, saying the present moment is "a pretty nightmarish kind of carnival, Fellini-esque inflated reality right now."
Musk himself has not commented on the similarities between him and the Miles character even as conservative news outlets like Fox News continue to claim that Glass Onion is a "veiled dig" at him.