Stephen Colbert tries to get Elon Musk to admit he's a supervillain

(Image credit: Late Show)

Stephen Colbert started out his interview with billionaire tech mogul Elon Musk on Wednesday's Late Show by comparing him to Tony Stark, the fictional billionaire tech mogul who is also Iron Man, asking, "Are you really trying to save the world?" Musk said that "he's trying to do good things." Colbert pointed out that he's trying to do good things and he's a billionaire, which "seems a little bit like either superhero or supervillain —you have to choose one." Musk demurred.

But Colbert wasn't finished. They talked about Tesla, and then Colbert asked Musk why he thinks people should live on an uninhabitable planet like Mars. Well, Mars "is a fixer-upper of a planet," Musk concedes, but humans can make it into a habitable Earth-like planet, by making it warmer. There's a fast way and a slow way to do that, he added, and the fast way is to "drop thermonuclear weapons over the poles." Aha! Colbert pounced: "You're a supervillain, that's what a supervillain does." Musk doesn't disagree. Watch below. Peter Weber

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Peter has worked as a news and culture writer and editor at The Week since the site's launch in 2008. He covers politics, world affairs, religion and cultural currents. His journalism career began as a copy editor at a financial newswire and has included editorial positions at The New York Times Magazine, Facts on File, and Oregon State University.