Before Squid Game turned hopscotch into horror and pink jumpsuits into panic attacks, it was already winking at a world we kind of recognized. Add in capitalism on steroids, masked elites, and a chilling sense of déjà vu, and suddenly it felt less like fiction and more like… Silicon Valley fanfic gone rogue. And when Elon Musk is somewhere in the cultural soup, well, things are bound to get weird.

While Squid Game gave us golden masks and nightmare capitalism, real life kept dropping plot twists that felt suspiciously on-brand, like the satire was leaking off the screen.

Elon Musk and Squid Game: the crossover capitalism might have ordered

Squid Game may have been fiction, but according to Hwang Dong-hyuk, its nightmare carnival of capitalism has roots in real-world figures. In a revealing conversation with Time, he said the sinister VIPs, those gold-mask-wearing spectators funding carnage for sport, were partly inspired by none other than Elon Musk. With his billions, bravado, and X reign, Musk offered a disturbingly on-theme template for an elite who enjoys the show a little too much. Power, after all, is better served flambéed with showmanship.

The Elon Musk echoes will only grow louder, it seems. As Hwang teased, season 3 gives the VIPs a more hands-on role, literally. “They take their masks off and go into the game and kill others with their own hands,” he said. And that shift? It mirrors how today’s billionaires no longer operate behind the scenes. They post policies, tank stocks, and announce coups from private jets. The spectacle is no longer hidden; it is monetized and livestreamed in 4K.

While fictional elites dive into bloodsport, real-world billionaires are serving plotlines so theatrical, even Squid Game might need a writers’ room break just to keep up.

Elon Musk’s timeline or a deleted Squid Game script? you decide

Firing people for X posts and tossing Nazi salutes, Elon Musk’s chaos is basically Squid Game’s bonus content. Whether sparring with governments over hate speech laws or endorsing fringe ideologies, his theatrics border on villainous camp. And yet, people still watch. Scroll. Repost. Just like the VIPs who cackle behind golden masks, the real-life drama becomes entertainment, and the audience stays complicit. Billionaire or James Bond villain? The lines blur alarmingly fast.

According to Hwang Dong-hyuk, as revealed in his interview with Time, this is just the new normal. Today’s VIPs are not hiding behind velvet curtains; they are the system. With headlines, lawsuits, and social feeds plastered with their names, they are not just witnessing the chaos; they are designing it. If Squid Game wrestled with who might actually make it out alive, real life is busy showing what the ultra-rich do when they know they always will.

What are your thoughts on Elon Musk possibly being the blueprint for a fictional supervillain? Let us know in the comments below.