The Elon Musk lore is never-ending: He founded PayPal, and had a secret baby with Grimes. He’s doing speaking engagements for former President Donald Trump’s campaign and giving out millions to registered voters in exchange for their signature on a petition.
And, apparently, Musk also had to kidnap and put headphones on seals—not once, but twice—in order to move forward with SpaceX’s base in Vandenberg, California.
According to a story Musk told during a November 2023 podcast appearance, when SpaceX was setting up its Vandenberg base, the government was worried that the sonic booms the rockets created would harm the area’s seal population. So, Musk said he had to put headphones on seals and play the boom.
“We were forced to kidnap a seal, strap it to a board, put headphones on the seal and play sonic boom sounds to it to see if it would be distressed,” Musk said on the Lex Friedman podcast. “This is actually real. I have pictures.”
And the photo that Friedman showed on the podcast of the seal per Musk’s description is now going viral, thanks to Musk referencing a similar anecdote recently.
At Musk’s town hall for Trump in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania Sunday, he discussed the hoops he had to jump through, which he called government “overregulation,” so the SpaceX base wouldn’t disturb local sharks and whales.
“SpaceX had to do this study to see if Starship would hit a shark. And I’m like … it’s a big ocean. There are a lot of sharks! It’s not impossible, but it’s very unlikely,” Musk said, then claimed that after the shark study was complete, the government made him do another. “Then we thought, ‘Okay, now we’re done.’ But then they said, ‘What about whales?’”
“You can’t make this stuff up,” one X user tweeted, alongside the photo of the seal.
“POV: You’ve been ordered by the US Fish and Wildlife Service to kidnap a seal and impress it with kickass human music,” Malaysian far-right influencer Ian Miles Cheong tweeted. “What are ya blasting in this pup’s ears?”
Another X user meme-d the photo, adding the words “Obama did this to me” to the image.
And others created their own illustrations of the seal with headphones:: One showed a cartoon seal crying, and another imagined the seal in the “this is fine” meme.
Many X users are making the seal with headphones their profile picture on the platform, too, as tacit support for Musk and Trump.
“Leave the little seals alone. What total incompetence. Win Elon Musk and Trump,” wrote one user.
Of course, like with a lot of criticism Musk levied, there is a flaw in the logic. SpaceX applied to lease the base in 2017, which was when Trump was in office.
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