The Man Who Would be King competition 2022!
Hello, sports fans, and welcome to the updated standing for the Man Who Would be King 2022! 2022 has shaped up to be a momentous year of wanna-be rulers. With so many contenders for self-destruction, it was hard to narrow the list, but our dedicated staff has burned the midnight oil to bring you these final two contestants. Elon Musk and Vladimir Putin. That's right, sports fans, these two egomaniacs have demonstrated a remarkable combination of ludicrous arrogance and empire-destroying decisions that drove them to the top of the heap. Let's explore their notorious exploits!
Image 1: From Wikimedia Commons, the free media repository. Note the well-practiced cold stare the hides his growing fear of assassination.
Vladimir Putin, President of Russia since 2012, has diligently worked for over two decades to orchestrate his destruction. President Putin (sometimes called Vlad the Imposer) rose in the chaos of the post-Communist Soviet Union. He quickly worked most diligently to consolidate his power and eliminate his foes via all expenses paid trips to Siberia, seasoning their tea with polonium, or long walks out of third-story windows. Following the great traditions of previous Russian would-be kings, Putin strengthened his loyal military units (just like the Czars of old), purged the senior leadership in the fashion of Stalin, and built himself gloriously sized Dachas (like all the great kings). The Imposer then decided to flex his super military by invading countries with armies of approximately 10% or less equitable size. Despite unexpectedly stiff resistance from the Chechens, he mercilessly sacrificed as many Russian soldiers as needed to win. Multiple additional tiny-country invasions systematically followed this. In parallel, Putin continued to erode the Russian democratic election system, extended his Presidency, semi-retired, and then remembering the lessons from his future dictator club, reinstated himself as President for life. With this grand string of dictator successes behind him, Putin decided it was finally time to hang it. In classic ego-maniac style, he decided to invade the rest of Ukraine. This has ensured he will go down in a ball of fire, wreaking havoc right up to the moment he is deposed in the Russian tradition of suddenly suffering from a lead overdose to the brain.
Image 2: From Wikimedia Commons, the free media repository. Note the secret megalomaniac microphone continuously attached to his mouth.
Elon Musk (known as the little musky boy back home) dreamed of becoming a Billionaire dictator while still a small child in South Africa. Realizing his best opportunity for achieving this goal lay in the rich bosom of America, he emigrated. He specifically targeted Silicon Valley since it is widely known for allowing megalomaniacs to run feral. When he sold off PayPal, he made over $170m and never looked back. Continuing his drive toward childhood heroes like Howard Hughes (in his white glove days), he boldly continued to amass an ever-increasing fortune with Tesla, SpaceX, and Starlink. Ever mindful of the world’s perceived concerns, he started Solar City and Tesla Energy to offset the impressively high carbon emissions from his personal jet. Musk finally achieved the pinnacle of billionaire dictators in January of 2021 when he was formally ordained the wealthiest person alive by all the important business magazines. Having completed his goal, Musk diligently set about orchestrating his dynamic downfall. Unused to social interaction, his first attempts at self-destruction (smoking pot on a podcast and releasing mediocre music) proved to have little impact. His next ambition was to create the land of muskiness on Mars, but he became disenchanted with how long Martian colonization/conquest took. Turning back to his comfort zone, Musk attempted to drive Tesla into the ground but was voted off the boardroom island. In 2022 Musk finally found his nuclear meltdown tool, Twitter! By first taunting the executives, he set the scene for a spaghetti western-style showdown! When they replied with their own taunting, “are not,” the grade school conflict had begun in earnest. Musk then described all their terrible decisions and followed it up with the ultimate “is to” by offering a vastly overpriced buyout. The Twitter team realized that this was their golden ticket out of pending bankruptcy and quickly accepted. Musk then realized his mistake and attempted to back out of the deal but had foolishly not read the glaring print on the contract holding him liable for a fortune. In a proper blaze of glory style, Musk drove through with the deal forcing him to try and quietly cash out billions of dollars of Tesla stock. Musk quickly swung into action by firing all the executive staff, followed by firing a vast number of general employees, tried to assuage the primary advertisement investors while simultaneously retweeting obvious bullshit, and finished the first few weeks of leadership by declaring a high likelihood of bankruptcy—self-inflicted fait accompli.
Both men are still diligently working on adding fuel to their personal bonfires. It seems likely they will survive the year but equally likely to self-destruct in 2023, bringing themselves to the natural conclusion for all dictators. Stay tuned in 2023 as we continue to track and report on the year’s leading contenders, Donald Trump and Xi Jinping.