Who’s Elon Musk’s Biggest Fan? His Mom

She sits in on his business meetings, defends him on X, and travels to give talks about how she raised him, the richest man in the world—but who is Elon Musk’s mother? Today on the show, we learn all about the model, influencer, and author, Maye Musk, while dissecting her most recent travels to China and her possible influence on foreign politics.

You can follow Michael Calore on Bluesky at @snackfight, Lauren Goode on Bluesky at @laurengoode, and Zoë Schiffer on Bluesky at @zoeschiffer. Write to us at uncannyvalley@wired.com.

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Transcript

Note: This is an automated transcript, which may contain errors.

Michael Calore: Hey, Zoë, what does your mom call you?

Zoë Schiffer: I feel like I’ll erode a lot of my credibility if I tell you, so I’m just going to say that a lot of people call me Zoe for short.

Michael Calore: Okay.

Zoë Schiffer: Which is what my name looks like.

Michael Calore: If you don’t have the umlaut over the E, it just looks like Zoe?

Zoë Schiffer: Yeah, because it doesn’t have the Y so people always get confused. I’m like, “Oh, no, my parents call me Zoe. Don’t worry about it.”

Lauren Goode: Oh. Right, right. Like Zooey Deschanel, she has the Y, right? Yeah, okay.

Michael Calore: But she’s Zooey.

Lauren Goode: I never thought about that before.

Michael Calore: Isn’t she? Isn’t she Zooey?

Lauren Goode: No, she’s Zooey.

Zoë Schiffer: Like Franny and Zooey is spelled Zooey but it’s Zooey, Franny and Zooey. Anyway, Mike, what do your parents, what did they call you when you were little?

Lauren Goode: She’s deflecting really hard. She doesn’t want to tell us the real nickname.

Zoë Schiffer: I can’t. I just feel like I already have too much imposter syndrome.

Michael Calore: For a very long time, my mother referred to me by my full name, Michael, and so did my father.

Lauren Goode: What’s your middle name?

Michael Calore: Seth.

Lauren Goode: Did they call you Michael Seth?

Michael Calore: On very, very rare occasions.

Zoë Schiffer: Seth really could be your first name, too. I feel like that feels like that almost fits.

Lauren Goode: Oh, yeah. You’re a Seth.

Michael Calore: Do I present as Seth?

Zoë Schiffer: A little bit. Seth rising, if you will.

Michael Calore: Okay.

Lauren Goode: Yeah. Seth goes to a lot of live music shows. Yeah.

Michael Calore: Seth’s a guy, you know? What about you, Lauren?

Lauren Goode: My name is Lauren Goode.

Michael Calore: Yes.

Lauren Goode: I have a hard time pronouncing my name. You know this from years of doing podcasts with me. Whenever it comes to that moment of I’m Lauren Goode.

Michael Calore: Yeah.

Lauren Goode: Sometimes when I got to order coffee, they ask for my name, they end up writing it M because I struggle to say the L. I feel like I should just change my name.

Michael Calore: What do you think your psyche is telling you?

Lauren Goode: When I was a kid, sometimes my mom called me Wren.

Zoë Schiffer: Oh.

Lauren Goode: I feel like I should be a Wren.

Zoë Schiffer: I really like that. I think that’s a sweet name.

Michael Calore: Wren.

Zoë Schiffer: I feel if were at the Joe Rogan Podcast, which we’re all devout listeners of, we would be asking Grok right now what your name should be, and then you would be called that for the rest of time.

Lauren Goode: Or just be Wren. But the thing with Wren Goode is it’s two really hard single-syllable words.

Michael Calore: That’s true.

Zoë Schiffer: What’s your middle name?

Lauren Goode: Margaret.

Michael Calore: It’s like a spondee, though, Wren Goode.

Lauren Goode: Wren Goode, it is kind of cool. Wren Margaret. Maybe I should just be Wren Margaret. Now if anyone really wants to dox me. Would you like my social security number? They’re all going to be public soon anyway.

Zoë Schiffer: Yeah. Let’s talk through your birthday.

Lauren Goode: Right. Some 19-year-old currently has my social security number, so great.

Michael Calore: Okay. Well, here is a more topical question. What do you think Elon Musk’s mom calls him?

Zoë Schiffer: Little E.

Lauren Goode: Oh. I don’t know. Maybe?

Zoë Schiffer: He did actually take over the @E handle shortly before he bought Twitter. A little scoop for you. I don’t know what nickname she calls him, but I do think it’s funny that she’s been like, “It’s insulting to call him a billionaire. He is the genius of the world and should be recognized as such.”

Michael Calore: That’s some strong mom energy. This is WIRED’s Uncanny Valley, a show about the people, power, and influence of Silicon Valley. Today we’re talking about Maye Musk. She’s a model, influencer, and an author of the memoir A Woman Makes a Plan. She’s been traveling to some notable places this year to promote her work and to rep her son, Elon Musk. Who is Maye Musk? What do you need to know about her? And how much influence does she currently have over US politics? I am Michael Seth Calore, director of consumer tech and culture here at WIRED.

Lauren Goode: I’m Wren Goode, senior writer at WIRED. Oh, that was easy.

Michael Calore: Yeah.

Zoë Schiffer: I’m Zoë Schiffer, WIRED’s director of business and industry.

Michael Calore: With an umlaut.

Zoë Schiffer: With an umlaut. I almost said Zoe and I was like it’s too many bits for us.

Michael Calore: Let’s get started with the big question. Who is Maye Musk?

Lauren Goode: Maye is an entrepreneur, and a model, and a dietician, and an author in her own right. I think she’s probably best well-known for being a model. She’s been a model from a young age and continues to model into her late 70s. She’s also the author of a book called A Woman Makes a Plan. This came out in 2019, but it continues to be popular particularly because it’s popular in China, where it was translated into Chinese the year after it came out. She was born in Canada. She was raised mostly in South Africa, which is where she started modeling. She was 15 then, and she was a finalist in the Miss South Africa contest.

Michael Calore: Hey, mazel tov.

Lauren Goode: Yeah. This is also where she got married, she had kids, and then divorced. She’s got three kids. In addition to Elon, there’s Kimbal, who I think a lot of people have also heard of, and Tosca. It sounds like a cookie, doesn’t it? I’d love some Tosca with my tea.

Zoë Schiffer: She would never have a cookie. Her mom talks constantly about no cookies.

Michael Calore: Yeah.

Lauren Goode: Wow. Fascinating. She ended up moving to California in 1996, when her two sons started the software company that gave Elon his start. It was called Zip2. Now she bounces around the world. She’s a citizen of the world, this is partly because of Elon and partly it’s because it’s where her work takes her. One note that’s interesting about her modeling career is that she’s become an advocate or representation for people of all ages and sizes. The fact that she’s an older woman and still has these makeup and beauty product endorsements says a lot about her durability as an entrepreneur and as a model. In 2022, she was also the oldest woman to appear on the cover of the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Edition.

Zoë Schiffer: It was a good cover.

Lauren Goode: Which I think then, she was later maybe surpassed by Martha Stewart.

Michael Calore: Oh, really?

Zoë Schiffer: Interesting.

Lauren Goode: Martha Stewart was 81-

Zoë Schiffer: Oh my gosh.

Lauren Goode: … when she graced the cover of Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue.

Zoë Schiffer: The term dietician always gives me pause. What is …

Lauren Goode: That’s a really good question about her dietician career, Zoë. She studied nutrition, or she calls it dietetics, from a young age. But it was after she got divorced, she was around 31, that’s when she had to build up her own practice. She has said that she was, at one point, seeing up to 25 patients or clients a day while modeling. Zoë, would you call this extremely hardcore?

Zoë Schiffer: I would say that’s extremely hardcore.

Lauren Goode: These days, she’s doing a lot of speaking engagements that are often geared towards women. Women’s empowerment, beauty, health. And also, parenting, because we’re going to keep coming back to this, she has a very famous son.

Michael Calore: Yes, she does. We all know about Elon’s influence and how important he is in our world, and now in the larger world of the United States government and the world stage. But what is Maye’s own personal influence? How does she move the needle around the world?

Zoë Schiffer: She has a really big social presence. I think she’s got about 1.5 million followers on Instagram, where she posts a lot about her family. I think one recent video, the voiceover was like, “As the mother of three billionaires.” I was like, okay. But she also has 1.4 million followers on Twitter. And as Lauren mentioned, she’s got her book, she’s a model. She’s an influencer in China, which we can get into later. Her profile has grown alongside Elon’s.

Michael Calore: Right. She’s been in the news lately for a lot of reasons and we’ll get into those later, as you mentioned. One of the most obvious is that she is Elon Musk’s mother and Elon Musk has been in the news, so she has also been in the news, too. Let’s talk about the two of them and what their relationship is like.

Zoë Schiffer: Yeah. By all accounts, Lauren, I’m curious to get your take, but it seems like they have a pretty tight relationship. Elon famously is estranged from his father, Maye’s ex-husband. When I was reporting my book about Elon Musk’s acquisition of Twitter, I would talk to executives who would say, “Yeah, we sat down for this very high level meeting, and inexplicably Elon had brought his mom along.” Everyone was like, “What is she doing here?” She would pipe in and give her suggestions. People found it to be pretty odd, according to the conversations that I had with them. She also is known for going head-to-head with reporters and other people online who are critical of her son. One recent example was that CNN did a panel after Elon Musk appeared at Trump’s inauguration in January. Then implied that he had done a Nazi-like salute. Maye was out there, suggesting that he’d simply sue CNN for that coverage.

Lauren Goode: Yeah. There was this moment back in 2022 when it was shortly after Elon had announced the Twitter acquisition. His tweets started getting a little bit bizarre. Because a lot of these business negotiations here happening out in public. As a result, people were responding to his tweets. One of his crusades was against spambots. Maye took it upon herself to start calling people out on Twitter who she identified to be spambots or in other ways disingenuous. She was using the hashtag #nasty. She would put nasty, nasty. At one point she quote-tweeted someone and she said, “Is this a bot or a troll? 16 followers, nearly 2000 likes, makes you think. #nastynasty.” She waged this one-woman campaign to be like, “Hey, one, I’m highlighting spam on the platform, which is something that my son is currently investigating. Two, stop picking on Elon.”

Michael Calore: Yeah.

Zoë Schiffer: I find this so relatable. She’s just being such a mom. But the, “No matter how rich and influential my son is, I’m still going to be out there defending him to critics on Twitter, including to accounts that might be bots and have 16 followers,” is so funny. I’m like, “Yeah. Me, too, girl.”

Michael Calore: I do think it’s kind of sweet, the way that they pay attention to each other a lot in public. They show up to events together. She’s a model, she’s a very glamorous dresser. She always appears very well put together. And she dresses up, I would say better than he does.

Zoë Schiffer: Not hard.

Michael Calore: Absolutely no shade at all. I’m wearing a camo hat right now and I have an unbuttoned flannel over a branded T-shirt. But she does, she dresses up very well. They appear together at events. At galas, at dinners, and things like that, in formal wear.

Lauren Goode: Right.

Michael Calore: I think it’s kind of sweet.

Zoë Schiffer: Totally.

Lauren Goode: This is actually another great anecdote from Issacson’s book, which is that they went to the Met Gala.

Zoë Schiffer: Right.

Lauren Goode: Which is, of course, run by our boss here at Conde Nast, Anna Wintour. All of us, of course, have been invited to the Met Gala, we just haven’t been able to make it yet.

Zoë Schiffer: Yeah, a conflict.

Lauren Goode: Yes. Scheduling conflicts. Elon and Maye were invited. Apparently he got out of a meeting at about 9:00 PM, but they had to show up at the Met Gala.

Zoë Schiffer: Wow. Well, this is the sweet segment of the show. I feel like we have to talk about some of the potential issues with Maye Musk’s profile around the world. But let it be said that we had a whole segment where we talked about how charming it is that they love each other apparently.

Michael Calore: Yes. Yeah. On that note, let’s all hold onto those feelings while we take a break, and we’ll come right back. Welcome back to Uncanny Valley. Maye Musk has been traveling all over the world. Most notably, she’s been going to places like China and the United Arab Emirates. Why is she going to these places?

Lauren Goode: Well, Maye Musk is in the business of being Maye Musk. She’s known as a silver-haired influencer in China. In China in particular, she’s got a lot of product endorsement ties. Makeup, massagers, clothing. She does a lot of speaking engagements. I think in order to really under her presence there, we should take a look at this ad that ran sometime in 2024. She’s tied to a brand called Babycare.

[Archival audio]: (Singing) I look up and think about the new.

Lauren Goode: The rest of the ad is in Mandarin, but there are English subtitles.

[Archival audio]: (Ad playing in Mandarin)

Lauren Goode: She’s asking, “How do you raise successful kids?” It’s Maye, just cruising through the streets, looking as elegant as ever. With beautiful scenery of children playing in the street and everything.

Zoë Schiffer: Wow.

Lauren Goode: There’s a little girl dancing. It’s very cute.

Zoë Schiffer: Wait, I love this ad.

Michael Calore: The messaging here is that you shouldn’t tell kids to be quiet, and sit down and do what they’re told. You should tell them to be loud. You should tell them to get up and run. You should tell them to disobey authority. To be themselves.

Zoë Schiffer: Let kids grow up free.

Lauren Goode: Free-range kids.

Zoë Schiffer: Don’t obey the rules.

[Archival audio]: (Ad playing in Mandarin)

Lauren Goode: What’s interesting about this too, is that in Issacson’s biography of Musk, he writes about how Maye herself grew up where her parents took a lot of risks. They are free-range children. It is in their family DNA in a sense, to have these risk-taking, courageous kids.

Zoë Schiffer: Not to make this all about my kids always, but I tend to raise very free kids, let them do what they want within the bounds of reason. The result is that my three-year-old hasn’t washed her hair in four weeks. I don’t know if I’m benefiting in the way that Maye Musk seems to believe is possible.

Michael Calore: If you’re watching Chinese television, you’ll see this ad. You’ll have very warm and affection feelings toward Maye Musk and her famous children. Joking aside, she is an influential person in China. Why does that influence concern some?

Zoë Schiffer: We’re just at a very interesting moment with diplomatic relations with China. We’re in a Cold War, some have called it, related to AI and it raises a number of concerns. For example, foreign governments could conceivably use Maye Musk as a way to try to get close to Elon, and thereby Trump, almost to exert control on the current administration. That’s just something to pay attention to. There’s fears that her phone could be hacked while she is there.

Michael Calore: Oh.

Zoë Schiffer: She was riding on Air Force One recently. While these are purely theoretical, the stakes are pretty high. There’s worry that foreign governments could try and curry favor with her by asking her to model or be brand ambassadors for various companies. There’s, again, no evidence that this has happened with her current relationships with brands overseas, but something to pay attention to. They could retaliate if the US government does something they don’t like, by pulling her books of shelves or canceling contracts. Then there’s this more far-fetched, but very problematic issue, which is in a worse case scenario where China was retaliating against the US for something that the US or Trump did, if Maye Musk was in China during that time, could they physically hold her there? China is known for going tit-for-tat. If a foreign government does something that China doesn’t like, China will retaliate in kind. We have Marco Rubio in the administration. He is a serious China hawk. I think the fear is that the Trump Administration would do something that China doesn’t like and that Maye Musk could be in the middle of this national security fiasco.

Lauren Goode: Right. It’s not clear how much money she’s actually making from this incredible influence that she has in China. Nor does anyone think that she’s getting money from the Chinese government directly, or anything like that.

Zoë Schiffer: No.

Lauren Goode: We know that she’s been to China at least four times in late 2024, the New York Times did report that. She’s promoting her makeup products. Presumably, she’s still promoting her book or using that as leverage for her brand, and that sort of thing. It’s more about that influence. In particular, when you think about Elon’s business. China is a huge market for Tesla vehicles. Tesla’s largest production factor is in Shanghai. Tesla also built a large battery factory last month in Shanghai. Last year, Tesla’s China sales hit a record high. Nearly 37% of its cars were delivered to customers in China. That’s more than 657,000 Tesla vehicles. Elon has very vested interest in the Chinese market, and I think people are looking at some of his mother’s activities there, and looking at the importance of his business there, and just wondering if there’s a line to be drawn between the two of them. When Maye was in China last fall, she wrote on X, “China is so advanced in roads, tunnels, buildings, infrastructure, and ports. I’m always impressed when I visit.” Sure, you could be someone on vacation who’s just, “Wow! I’m marveling at this new place that I’m in,” right?

Michael Calore: Weird flex, but okay.

Lauren Goode: There also could be a lot of subtext there.

Michael Calore: Yeah.

Zoë Schiffer: Yeah. I think, Lauren, your point brings up the larger issue, which is just we don’t know, but there are possibilities of undue influence. I think the fact that it’s not known and there’s not a lot of controls in place. Normally, if someone who is close to an advisor of the president was traveling overseas, there would have been checks on their background, there would be investigations. It doesn’t appear that those things have actually happened. There was a lot of security protocols that weren’t followed. I think there’s just, again, the possibility that something more nefarious could happen in the future.

Michael Calore: Elon Musk has been able to sidestep a lot of the requirements for security clearance, simply because he’s always taken on an advisory role in the US government, or as a contractor for the federal government. We would assume that his mother is not even anywhere on that map as well.

Zoë Schiffer: Yeah.

Michael Calore: As far as getting a lot of scrutiny from security clearance people.

Zoë Schiffer: Yeah. We don’t have any evidence that she’s been through that process. Judging by how the DOGE employees went about entering government, which in many cases, they were up and working in government systems before having received security clearances, yeah, I think there’s reason to be suspect that she was put under that microscope for that process.

Michael Calore: When countries invite celebrities, people who have some sort of influence on the world stage, to come visit their country and hang out, and they wine them and dine them, there is some soft diplomacy happening. “We are going to invite you here, you’re going to have a great time. You’re going to go back home, you’re going to tell everybody about how great of a time you had, how welcoming the people were. Wouldn’t it be great if we were a little bit nicer to them?” We can see that being implied in a lot of the places that she’s traveling, like China. She went to Kazakhstan recently to promote her book. Maye Musk has also gone to the UAE to speak and to make appearances there. You can see, if you’re inviting a Maye Musk into your world, there are implications about wanting to reach out, wanting to have a better relationship with the United States, right?

Zoë Schiffer: Yeah, for sure. She’s not an ambassador in the official sense, but she’s playing an influential role nonetheless in the United States’ relationship with these foreign governments, just by simply going there and posting about it on social media.

Lauren Goode: Totally. Yeah. In January, just before the inauguration, she did go to Dubai and she gave a talk. It was called How I Raised Three Amazing Children, Including the Richest Man in the World.

Michael Calore: Oh.

Lauren Goode: What an incredible flex.

Michael Calore: Wow.

Zoë Schiffer: Yeah.

Michael Calore: I was just going to say, I would have loved to have seen that talk.

Zoë Schiffer: Unironic same.

Michael Calore: Can we tell where Maye Musk is just being a supportive mom and spreading the gospel of Elon, and can we tell where she might be doing a little bit more than that?

Lauren Goode: I tend to see Maye as a little bit of a Kris Jenner.

Michael Calore: Ah.

Lauren Goode: Her children are very famous, and she’s clearly very supportive of their careers, and will defend them to the ends of the Earth. But also, she’s an operator to the point where she has become her own really powerful and influential brand. There are probably a lot of ties behind the scenes that we don’t have full access to. I think what everyone’s going to be watching really closely is to see how those ties with China develop or evolve, and if there’s any possibility that they could be exploited.

Zoë Schiffer: Yeah. I would just add to that, that as her influence has grown, she’s using that influence to try and preserve Elon’s reputation, to try and promote his business. Again, a Kris Jenner profile. She’s not just doing that as a mom, she’s also doing that as someone who’s very invested in his tangible success it seems like.

Michael Calore: Well, somebody’s got to look out for him.

Zoë Schiffer: So true.

Michael Calore: Somebody really needs to step up and make sure that he remains a successful person.

Zoë Schiffer: Right.

Lauren Goode: I think that if Maye Musk ever shows up in the Oval Office and starts answering questions from reporters, then we’ll have reached a new tipping point.

Michael Calore: Do you think she’d sit on his shoulders?

Zoë Schiffer: That would be really difficult. She looks really tall.

Michael Calore: All right. Well, let’s take another break and we’ll come right back. Welcome back to Uncanny Valley. It’s been a while since we have done an Overheard in Silicon Valley, so we’re going to play that game this week. We’re going to dish some buzz, and I only want good answers. Who wants to go first? Zoë, Lauren?

Zoë Schiffer: Wait. I feel like you might have the best tea. You were at South by Southwest.

Lauren Goode: Yeah.

Zoë Schiffer: You must have overheard the craziest things.

Michael Calore: Well, it’s not necessarily a crazy overheard, but there were Waymos at South by Southwest this week.

Zoë Schiffer: Wait. Is Waymo running there?

Michael Calore: It is now, through the Uber app.

Zoë Schiffer: Oh.

Michael Calore: They partnered with Uber.

Lauren Goode: Interesting.

Michael Calore: When you’re at South by Southwest for specific parts of Austin, you can request a Waymo through the Uber app. I did not do this because I needed to get where I was going in a quick manner and the wait time for a Waymo was around 20, 25 minutes.

Zoë Schiffer: Oh, wow.

Michael Calore: I just chose regular Ubers while I was there. But the company was offering rides, regularly priced rides, just like the Waymos are priced in other places where they operate through the Uber app. It was kind of interesting, kind of weird. I quizzed people about them all week when I was there, and people loved it. There were people obviously from all over the world there. Everybody was, “Oh, it was so easy and it was so nice. I was scared and I didn’t know what to do, and the experience was really helpful. They hold your hands,” and all this. Then the other question that I would ask people from Austin is if they were aware that the Tesla Robotaxi service is supposed to be launching in Austin in June. Because last year, Elon Musk showed off the new Tesla Robotaxi. He said that, as part of this car’s release, they’re going to be launching a robotaxi service for Tesla cars.

Zoë Schiffer: Full self-driving, like Waymo-esque?

Michael Calore: Yes. Not only will you be able to order a robotaxi to show up, a Tesla-branded robotaxi to show up, but you’ll be able to, if you’re a Tesla owner, put your Tesla into a pool so that your Tesla can drive around and offer people robotaxi rides while you’re at the office, or sleeping, or whatever.

Lauren Goode: Passive income.

Michael Calore: Right. He has said multiple times that this is going to be launching in Austin, Texas in June. We’re all like, “Okay.” I was asking people in Austin, “Have you heard of this?” And nobody had heard of it.

Lauren Goode: Huh.

Zoë Schiffer: Well, he famously over-promises on the delivery date of certain things.

Michael Calore: Yes.

Zoë Schiffer: I feel like that’s fair to say.

Michael Calore: Yes. I think it will be a small miracle if there is one robotaxi ride in Austin at the very, very end of June this year.

Lauren Goode: Wait. Can I share an overheard that is related to your experience at South by Southwest, Mike?

Michael Calore: Yes.

Lauren Goode: Someone who we work with sent me a video and said, “Check out Mike.” It was you getting into a baby blue Cybertruck.

Michael Calore: Yes.

Lauren Goode: What was happening here?

Michael Calore: We called a Lyft, and the Lyft that showed up was a Cybertruck. When it rolled up, the guy had a wrapper on it, it was baby blue.

Zoë Schiffer: Wow. That is a shocking turn of events.

Lauren Goode: You didn’t know a Cybertruck was showing up?

Michael Calore: No. No, we did not know.

Lauren Goode: Oh my God, incredible.

Michael Calore: Yeah, it was shocking. It was very shocking. I was like, “Well, we’re getting in it,” so we got in it. We asked him about it. He was a little chatty and he told us why he bought it. He drove it out from San Diego to Austin. I asked him if anybody had vandalized his car or defaced it and he said, “Yes, somebody drew a swastika on it and wrote Nazi.” Then he wiped it off because of his baby blue wrap makes it so that you can just wipe off vandalism.

Zoë Schiffer: Wow.

Lauren Goode: Did that change the way he was feeling about his Cybertruck?

Michael Calore: I don’t think so. I think he’s still proud of it and still likes it.

Zoë Schiffer: Yeah, I feel like you double-down if you’re a Cybertruck owner. We had a recent incident earlier this week in Ventura, where a Cybertruck, I think the owner was attempting to launch a jet ski and the Cybertruck ended up in the water.

Michael Calore: Oh, no.

Zoë Schiffer: It was being towed out of the ocean.

Lauren Goode: Oh, no!

Michael Calore: Oh, no.

Zoë Schiffer: In footage that was circulating on social media.

Lauren Goode: When you say that, Zoë, about the Tesla being in the water and being towed out, I’m thinking of those duck boats in the Boston Harbor. Do you know what I’m talking about, Mike?

Michael Calore: Did it float?

Lauren Goode: Did it?

Zoë Schiffer: It did not float. But we did just get a really old children’s book about the duck boats in Boston.

Lauren Goode: Oh.

Zoë Schiffer: Okay, Lauren, what’s your overheard?

Lauren Goode: Well, I was going to talk about vibe coding in Silicon Valley, but now I feel like I want to keep consistent with your theme.

Michael Calore: Oh, yes.

Lauren Goode: Which is there’s this little cottage industry popping up on Etsy, I noticed. If you type in just Rivian sticker, there are more than 1000 results that come up. It’s basically the sticker for people who have a Tesla but wish they had a Rivian right now.

Zoë Schiffer: Oh my gosh.

Michael Calore: Oh, boy.

Lauren Goode: A couple episodes ago, we talked about all of Elon’s babies. Now we’re talking about the woman who had Elon as a baby. We talked about how the status symbol is now having three kids and a Rivian. Now we’re talking about Rivians again. Honestly, I think we’re just living in a simulation.

Zoë Schiffer: Okay, Elon.

Lauren Goode: Right? I would be happy to talk to more people about the simulation. Some of the stickers say, “Only driving this until I get my Rivian. I identify as a Rivian. The Anti-Elon Tesla Club,” that’s a car magnet. “This Tesla does not endorse Musk.” There’s a, “Love the car, not the CEO.” Yeah. If you’re looking for a sticker that’s pro-Rivian or anti-Tesla, there are a lot of options out there right now.

Zoë Schiffer: Etsy has your back.

Michael Calore: All right. That was some good overheard. Thank you. I feel so happy that we did that. I feel like a weight has been lifted off of my shoulders. Thanks for listening to another episode of Uncanny Valley. If you liked what you heard today, make sure to follow our show and rate it on your podcast app of choice. If you’d like to get in touch with us with any questions, comments, or show suggestions, write to us at uncannyvalley@WIRED.com. Today’s show was produced by Kyana Moghadam. Amar Lal at Macro Sound mixed this episode. Matt Giles fact-checked this episode. Jordan Bell is our executive producer. Katie Drummond is WIRED’s global editorial director. Chris Bannon is the head of global audio.