The Apocalyptic Thriller and Tesla Cars
Netflix’s new apocalyptic thriller, “Leave the World Behind,” based on the novel by Rumaan Alam, has captivated audiences with its depiction of a coordinated cyberattack on the United States. The film's crucial scene involving Teslas on a highway has sparked a baffling response from Elon Musk that completely missed the point.
Julia Roberts inspecting Teslas in Leave the World Behind
The movie revolves around a cyberattack that sends the American people into dystopian chaos. Ethan Hawke and Julia Roberts star as a couple vacationing on Long Island with their children when the cyberattack hits, and the country descends into anarchy.
Highways piled up with cars in Leave the World Behind
The scene with the Tesla cars is one of the strangest sequences in the movie. When the family attempts to leave their rented cabin for New Jersey, they find the highway jammed up with Teslas, preventing them from getting through. It is revealed that the Teslas' auto-driving feature was hacked to make them crash and block the highway, effectively isolating communities and cutting off transportation.
Teslas piled up in Leave the World Behind
The ambiguity of the film's portrayal of the cyberattack is a significant part of the narrative, leaving the audience in suspense about the identity of the attackers and the motives behind the attack.
Leave the World Behind: George Smith (Mahershala Ali) explains the three phase plans to Clay in the car.
The Three-Step Plan and Tesla's Role
In the final act of the movie, Mahershala Ali's character theorizes that the cyberattack is part of a three-step plan to destabilize America with a political coup d’état. The Tesla hack is revealed to be part of the first step: isolating people and cutting off their communication.
The attackers' strategy involves limiting transportation and the spread of communication by targeting vehicles. They hacked into the navigation system of an oil tanker, downed planes, and used the Teslas to block major roads, effectively impeding automotive transportation across the United States.
Elon Musk takes over Twitter
Elon Musk's Response and the Meaning of the Tesla Scene
Elon Musk's response to the Tesla scene in “Leave the World Behind” has attracted attention for missing the point of the portrayal. Musk attempted to shift the focus to the solar power charging of Teslas, which was unrelated to the scene's depiction of Tesla cars being hacked and used to block highways.
Musk's critique failed to address the core message of the scene, which highlighted the vulnerability of Tesla's technology to hacking. The portrayal of Teslas in the movie served as a reminder of the potential risks associated with advanced automotive technology in the face of cyber threats.
