Editor’s Note: The following column is satirical. It is meant for humorous purposes. All interviews and portrayals of individuals are fictitious.
The world has been stirred up over recent news involving billionaires Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos and Mark Zuckerberg, who have all started suddenly … caring about people? On Christmas morning this year, the world awoke to find the three scrooges being charitable and giving good cheer to the common man, correcting wrongs and doing some rights. Many people are confused as to why these men have had a sudden generosity in their hearts. Twitter users have taken to looking into their behavior and pointed out that perhaps they had their own Christmas carol.
After Elon Musk decided to give Twitter back to its original developers and announced an end to his space program, deciding to focus on tackling climate change and helping rebuild Amtrak trains, the press was quick to request interviews to try to find out what changed his mind. The tech giant seemed out of sorts, lacking sleep and appearing rather panicked, having disorganized mutters about Kanye West being president and an AI robot army taking over the world and disrupting democracy. And he also showed concern over the disappearance of ski resorts — the most pressing effect of global warming.
From what the now-freed Twitter users have gathered, it seems as though Elon has a bleak image of what the future could hold for him and ski resorts, deciding it was in his best interests to reverse some life choices. I think that perhaps he was visited by three ghosts of Christmas last night, and he was offered an idea of what would happen if he didn’t stop taking control of government projects and social media sites for the sake of his money-hungry ego. To make things better, the ghosts seemed to be making multiple stops that night, as two other men showed signs of change.
Jeff Bezos made the sudden decision Christmas morning to give all Amazon workers the day off and a major pay and benefits increase. He even signed deals granting Amazon employees the rights to form a union, allowing them to further barter deals and ensure their working rights. Amazon workers across the country celebrated, many of them now having the chance to spend the day with their families instead of worrying about being overworked.
When journalists went to ask Bezos what caused the sudden change of heart, he seemed a lot more relaxed than Musk, saying that he just felt like spreading some holiday cheer — although he did add something about a need to keep the commoners happy as a means for his head to not end up on a pike. I suspect that Bezos is not very concerned about spreading holiday cheer and is instead concerned about Amazon workers snapping and causing a communist revolution. Either way, Amazon workers are no longer being mistreated, and people’s faith in workers’ rights is restored.
More rejoicing was in order as Mark Zuckerberg promised to improve global access to the internet and set forth plans for better methods for preventing the spread of misinformation. His actions seem to be atoning for issues he caused in the Philippines with election misinformation and would overall improve learning access to many people across the world. But what spurred Zuckerberg to finally act on previous problems he caused?
When asked, Zuckerberg told reporters that he just didn’t want to go to hell. After asking for clarification, he informed them that he was told that his lack of action on preventing misinformation would cause a rise in right-wing groups across the globe. But he didn’t care much about causing waves of white supremacy or fascism until “they” showed him what hell would look like, and he decided “it didn’t look fun.”
Musk, Bezos and Zuckerberg have all made changes to improve the life of the world after being some of the worst people. Billionaires don’t just change their mind on business plans or decide to be charitable, making many feel that these sudden improvements can only come out of some “Christmas Carol” shenanigans. After all, what would change tyrannical men that hold most of the world’s wealth in their hands other than visions of their ultimate horrible fates? While we all celebrate during the holiday season, many of us will be happy about these sudden changes and a few of us will be wondering which of the one percent will be visited next year.
Lightning McMoney can be found finding justification for the world’s most terrible people.
