Once upon a time, you could ignore Elon Musk. Sure, he was famous and in the news, but it was perfectly possible to live your life without hearing his every inane utterance. Sadly, those times have passed. His purchase of the Donald Trump presidency and his vast destructive powers under DOGE mean his nasal voice and lame jokes are now inescapable.
But even Silicon Valley residents – perhaps more inoculated to Musk than anyone else – got a fright when a simple press of crosswalk buttons across Redwood City, Menlo Park, and Palo Alto summoned him.
The story was first reported by Palo Alto Online, which confirmed that crosswalk buttons appeared to have been hacked to play pre-recorded messages purporting to be from Musk and Mark Zuckerberg. But whoever’s responsible for this prank is clearly no fan of either:
Elon Musk crosswalk recording in Palo Alto pic.twitter.com/ttEX2l4st3
— Roger H Hatch (@rogerhhatch) April 13, 2025
This “Elon says”:
“Hi, This is Elon Musk. Welcome to Palo Alto, the home of Tesla engineering. You know they say that money can’t buy happiness and yeah… okay. I guess that’s true. God knows I’ve tried. But it can buy a Cybertruck and that’s pretty sick right. …right? F**k I’m so alone…”
crosswalks in the bay area got hacked to imitate zuckerberg and elon please pic.twitter.com/eQPBC58qGU
— cameron (@vigilanteshits) April 13, 2025
Another recording says:
“Hi, I’m Elon can we be friends? Will you be my friend? I’ll give you a Cybertruck I promise. Okay look, you don’t know the level of depravity I would stoop to just for a crumb of approval. I mean let’s be real, it’s not like I had any moral convictions to begin with right?”
We should underline that there are currently no indications that this isn’t Elon. I mean, it’s certainly exactly as pathetic as he sounds. But, let’s face it, while these messages may have nailed his whiny, neediness, there’s no way Musk has the emotional awareness to satirize himself quite so efficiently.
Either way, hats off to whoever managed to hack a crosswalk button message. City of Palo Alto spokesperson Meghan Horrigan-Taylor said 12 downtown intersections were hacked and they quickly disabled the voice announcement feature on the buttons until they could figure out what’s going on and how to fix it.
An investigation is underway to determine the culprit, with Redwood City Deputy City Manager Jennifer Yamaguma saying that “staff are actively working to investigate and resolve the issue as quickly as possible.” Here’s hoping they’re not investigating too hard, because this is the kind of harmless prank I want to see more of.
Published: Apr 14, 2025 05:17 am