WTF, Elon: a Peak Experience story

How the .01 percent get their thrills

Listen to the audio recording if you’d like to hear me butcher four different accents:

It was the third time I’d seen Diplo (known as Wes by people who have been on Raya since at least 2017) in as many weeks, and I’d run out of adulating observations on his latest set. He spotted me slouched on the far end of one of the unnecessarily stiff black leather couches in the Signature Aviation lounge at Teterboro next to a sleeping Emily Ratazkewski (sp?), the sole of one of her Loro Piana shearling boots annoyingly pressed against my outer thigh. Diplo/Wes raises both arms and grins, walking towards me. I smile, point to my ear, and roll my eyes. I still had my AirPods in when I had faked a call to preempt a conversation with Adrian Grenier, who had joined us from his Texas property where he LARPs as a ranch hand, and given his abundance of free time was probably the first of the invitees to arrive, so I just continue intermittently affirming and opposing my imaginary conference call partners: “absolutely [pause 4 seconds for the response]...yeah, that makes sense [pause slightly longer, frown]...no no, hold on now, that isn’t what we talked about [chiefly because there is no one else talking]...yeah, no, I’m not comfortable with that.” It’s funny how I end up getting actually frustrated when I’m pretending to be frustrated on a pretend call. Diplo/Wes smiles and nods, rolls his eyes empathetically, and plops down on a chair near the wall of windows overlooking a squadron of very private jets resting idle on whatever a jet parking lot is called. Other attendees - founders of household name tech companies, venture capital titans, crypto charlatans, semi-tolerable celebrities and extremely attractive suitcase bitches - who, like label-conscious turtles, live inside of their silver RIMOWA Original Check-In L twist suitcases - trickle in after him, all looking like day-one kindergarten children wondering where to sit in the lunchroom. We are gathered here today, at this hallowed private airport just outside of New York City, on the jaded precipice of yet another Peak Experience.

According to the random person with zero qualifications who created the Wikipedia entry, a Peak Experience is “an altered state of consciousness characterized by euphoria, often achieved by self-actualizing individuals.” This is the first time I’ve seen self-actualization as a present participle; I imagine someone who is in the process of self-actualizing is even more insufferable than someone who is self-actualized–kind of like how it’s even more annoying to watch a guy put his long hair into a manbun than it is to see it already up. It turns out that Abraham Maslow, the guy who gave us that tyrannically needy pyramid, also coined the term Peak Experience, which he more succinctly defined as, “moments of highest happiness and fulfillment.” To bring these concepts together in less abstract terms, once your tech company has been acquired or gone public, ensuring that you have three homes (each with staff, thirty different types of functional water, custom protein mixes, and full kimono wardrobes), a concierge medical team, an entourage that congeals to you after your TED talk, the air of self-esteem that you lacked in junior high school, and a Burning Man art car manifested from your inner child, you are constantly on the hunt for Peak Experiences.

Peak Experiences rarely happen organically. They are almost always orchestrated by a team of specialists in culture, food, travel, visual art, design, dance, music, pyrotechnics, pharmacology, psychology, BDSM and maritime law. The best Peak Experiences are ideally on someone else’s dime and occur in unusual destinations that appear to be rough or off-limits to tourists but have been smoothed-out by a great deal of well-camouflaged staff and unlocked for recreational use by political and economic influence: a sacred temple in Egypt, an abandoned half-built coastal resort seized by the government in Oman, a yacht once owned by an assassinated dictator, etc. Maslow once described Peak Experiences as having “a special flavor of wonder, of awe, of reverence, of humility and surrender before the experience as before something great”–like a sick drop for which the DJ makes you wait much longer than you expect. Most experiences fall short of this, which is why the ultra rich use psychedelics to do everything except for poop, because it is known that a good poop is one of the few naturally-occurring Peak Experiences. 

Peak Experiences become more difficult to achieve as one becomes older, wealthier and more accustomed to seeing B-list celebrities as decorations at parties hosted by billionaires. If at age 8 a Peak Experience was riding your bike past curfew after pounding a rainbow slurpee, achieving the same high thirty years later might require getting head while blindfolded on acid on the bow of a yacht at dawn at a sex party filled with the world’s most beautiful people during a hurricane just off the coast of Necker Island while the Dali Lama reads Pablo Neruda into your ear. And even that was kind of dull by the third stanza. Someone who has had an optimally engineered Peak Experience perpetually seeks more and more extreme Peak Experiences until their body and brain can no longer tolerate them, at which point they catatonically retire to Ibiza and Aspen and host Peak Experiences for their friends—sort of like how when you’ve had so much sex that it becomes boring, and you just want to watch. 

The Peak Experience for which fifty of us are presently gathering has been shrouded in mystery since I received the invitation, which is typical of immersive, multi-day destination parties hosted by people whose net worth is greater than the combined GDPs of the world’s five poorest countries. Without divulging a single salient detail, the invitation accurately sets the vibe for the experience: a paperless post without a Pinterest board means it will be a chaotic shit show, adding a Pinterest board means there will be staff, a paper invitation via snail-mail means there will be no drugs but a lot of alcohol, and a Fedexed box with some sort of object-as-the-invitation (e.g. a custom hardback children’s book) suggests that there will be more staff than attendees and to clear one’s schedule for at least three days after the event to allow the effects of the drugs to wear off. The invitation for this particular event had no precedent. 

I was on my way to the gym around 10:30 a.m. in late March when a drone buzzed down in front of me. “Hello, Quinn,” said a familiar voice. The drone landed, and from it emerged a hologram of Elon Musk wearing an Obi-Wan Kanobi robe (or a kimono?). Elon looked characteristically melodramatic. “You have been chosen to attend Elysium, the Peak Experience of a lifetime, which will take place June 1 to June 5. Get your ass to Mars - haha, just kidding, maybe next year. Please bring your passport, at least two swimming costumes, a sun hat, one entirely white outfit, and athletic shoes. All of your other clothing, creative and culinary needs will be met. Be at Teterboro 11am on June 1, and tell no one about this other than your EA. Toodles!” As the drone flew away I opened my calendar and blocked off the dates as, “WTF Elon.”

“Would you like breakfast?” I look up to see Thomas Keller holding a small plate filled with scrambled eggs and caviar topped with cream. I point again to my AirPods, smile and take the plate. “Yeah, definitely,” I say to both Thomas and my imaginary business associate. 

I scan the room. The staff already significantly outnumber guests, which is promising. Someone chubby with an unfortunate midlife crises tattoo is face down on a massage table with two masseuses working his corpulent back, an extremely handsome shirtless man with photoshopped abs pulls a barista cart with a gleaming La Marzocco espresso machine powered by a Tesla battery and operated by a grandmotherly Italian woman, several nurses in crisp, white uniforms roam about with intravenous poles offering B-vitamin hydration, and I now see that the mellow cello music I heard upon entry emanates from a real, live Yo-Yo Ma. The caviar roe detonates in my mouth just as Elon walks in. 

“Wheels up, motherfuckers!,” he bellows, grinning. “Let’s go!” Elon walks briskly through the lounge towards the doors to the jet parking lot wearing a leather jacket, a bandana, aviator sunglasses and combat boots. I nudge Emily Radajkawsky (sp?). She frowns, opens her eyes, and spots the nurses. 

“Shit, I missed the IV,” she says. 

“They’ll have them on the plane, too,” I assure her. An army of people in black shirts and pants scurry about, collecting overstuffed monogrammed bags. I start to take out my AirPods, cautiously ready to be social, when I spot Jeff Bezos, who looks at me and air-guitars as a greeting. I cram them back in. 

Like spoiled children following the pied piper, we walk out into the daylight behind Elon, who hasn’t broken stride since bursting into the lounge, towards a Boeing 747, which definitely defies Teterboro’s weight limit. The plane is emblazoned with the logo of the party: an inverted question mark with palm tree fronds growing out of the dot. Two uniformed people stand in front of the steps, one checking passports, the other holding a large open box. 

“I know you’re all the most important people in the world other than me, but you must all put your telephones into the box,” shouts Elon from the top of the steps over the wind and stirring jet engines. “You will get them back in four days when we return.” I wonder how I’ll credibly fake conference calls without my phone. I’m also wondering how Jeff Bezos, who’s a few people ahead of me, will handle this decree when Adrian Grenier, who’s a few people in front of him, starts whining. 

“Why?” he asks, his shoulders and hands raised in a trite questioning pose. “We already signed the biometric NDAs, so what’s it matter if we have phones?” 

“Shut the fuck up, Adrian Grenier,” scolds Elon. “You’re only invited because your eyes are pretty and we needed someone obedient and non-threatening for the models to look at given all the other guys are old or ugly-”

“Dude!” yells Jeff Bezos. I had kind of thought I was cast in that role, but Adrian Grenier’s eyes are prettier than mine. 

“-so just put your fucking phone in the box and get on the fucking plane,” yells Elon. Adrian Grenier’s shoulders drop, looking like an obedient and non-threatening 5-year-old with pretty eyes.

I step into the cabin, which channels psychedelic space nerd. The typical rows of thin plastic seats that recline imperceptibly and have voracious appetites for single AirPods have been replaced by giant command chairs that were probably appropriated from an actual space shuttle, each with the party logo stitched into the headrest. The standard muted white aisle and overhead lighting has been swapped out for every color known to man, and ancient looking samurai swords cross in rows on the ceiling. It’s bewilderingly ugly, but in a lavish way. I’m wondering what’s behind the curtains halfway into the cabin just as fifty attendants in clingy black jumpsuits emerge from them, each of them holding a small cup. 

“As Homer once said, there is a time for many words, and there is also a time for sleep,” says Elon. “In these cups are doses of Rozerem, the world’s finest sleep aid. The doses have been perfectly calibrated to your unique body and paired with customized vitamins and magnesium. You will awake shortly before we arrive, entirely refreshed and ready to consume far more entertaining recreational drugs befitting the paradise that awaits us.” The jaded crowd chuckles weakly. As the attendants get closer I see that the names of their assigned guests have been stitched into the breast of their jumpsuits along with the party logo above the word ‘ELYSIUM.’

“Hello Quinn,” says a young woman who looks like one of the robot temptresses from Westworld. “I am personally dedicated to your wellbeing for the next five days, and this is your customized sleep cocktail. May I show you to your seat?” I take the little cup in my hand and follow her to the seat next to Emily Ratakoski (sp?), who is already asleep underneath her Loro Piana cashmere blanket with her Loro Piana shearling boot extended well into my allocated space. Why is this woman always so fucking tired? I think to myself as I throw back the sleep cocktail, which tastes like orange peel, molasses and aspirin, only with a far more expensive aftertaste. Elon stands at the front of the cabin.

“Homer also said that a man who has been through bitter experiences and traveled far enjoys even his sufferings after a time,” he says. “We will be traveling far, but what awaits is Elysium, the mythical paradise at the end of the Earth for those favored by Zeus, where mortals become immortal, a playground for heroes. You are all heroes, and you are here because I favor each of you.” Elon had never exactly struck me as a Zeus. Maybe Coeus, the god of intellect–or Eros, god of procreation, what with his countless Musklings scattered around the world. 

The last thing I remember before the cocktail kicked in was the glint of the swords on the ceiling, there purely to spite commercial air travel rules about sharp objects, a garish fuck-you to TSA Security.  

The next thing I remember is a piercing scream. 

“They’re dead!” sobs a finally awake Emily Ratajkawski (sp?). “Diplo, er, Wes is gone, and Adrian Grenier is…is…” I open my eyes and I think my vision is clouded from the sedative, but then I smell the smoke that has filled the cabin, which is now a mangled mess. Daylight floods in from twenty feet behind me where the back half of the plane used to be. The seat where Diplo/Wes was, naturally in the back row just before staff, is gone. One of the samurai swords that had been above Adrian Grenier’s seat, which was right next to Diplo/Wes, is now stuck in Adrian Grenier. Elon stumbles towards him through crash detritus in the aisle. He puts his thumb on Adrian Grenier’s neck. 

“He’s gone,” he says, “along with the entire staff. Is everyone else alright?” 

“Can we have our phones back?” asks Jeff Bezos. 

“Yeah, that seems reasonable, all things considered,” says Sergey Brin. 

“Fuck your phones!” bellows Elon. “We need to get out of this plane immediately in case it blows.” I look out my window. The wings are missing, which means the odds of an explosion are minimal. 

“Elon,” says Richard Branson, “the wings are gone, so without fuel tanks it isn’t going to blow.”

“What the fuck do you know about aviation!” Elon yells. “Your spaceships are shit, and everyone still laughs about Virgin Cola.”

“That’s a low blow, Elon,” says Richard.

“Not as low as Virgin Galactic’s share price yesterday,” says Elon. 

“We’ll at least none of his shit blows up,” says Jeff Bezos. “Have you ever made a product that didn’t crash? PayPal, Tesla, SpaceX and now this geeked out nerd-mobile.”

“Fuck you, Jeff Bezos!” retorts Elon. “You haven’t had hair since the Reagan administration and your pecs are fake!”

“They used the scraps from my pec implants to jack your jaw, and no one believes that hairline is yours,” says Jeff Bezos. 

“I still have all my hair,” grins Richard Branson.

“All of the supplies were in the staff quarters,” says Margot Robbie. “How about you stop arguing over which of you has aged the best-“

“That would be me,” says Bryan Johnson, the 70-year-old tech not-quite-billionnaire entrepreneur whose arm is still tethered via IV to his 17-year-old son / blood boy. Margot takes a performative step towards Bryan Johnson.

“You’re an egomaniacal vampire who only reproduced to leech off your child, and you have nothing better to do than exfoliate with platinum dust and biohack your gut,” seethes Margot Robbie. “You look like a walking fucking rough draft of an evil AI cartoon.”

“I take that as a compliment,” says Bryan Johnson, who actually does look like the output of Midjourney.  

“Let’s get out of this fucking plane,” says Margot Robbie, who struts down the aisle past other bewildered guests and body-checks Sergey Brin and Richard Branson out of her way. 

“That’s a fire strut,” remarks Emily Ratajkoski (sp?) through her sobs. “Did you ever model?” 

Margot Robbie makes the 5-foot jump out of the twenty foot hole in the back of the plane onto the sandy beach below. Elon follows her. 

“We must go find potable water,” he says. 

“Is potable water like sparkling water?” asks Emily Ratajcowski (sp?) as she leaps out of the plane, landing like a cat with very large breasts. 

“Christ,” says Margot Robbie as she disappears into the dense tropical brush abutting the shoreline. One by one, guests make their unathletic jump with their own fretful sound, some landing on their feet, others tumbling to their knees. Reid Hoffman hesitates on the jagged edge. 

“I have bad knees because I used to be super fat,” he says. “Is there maybe a ladder somewhere?”

“I’ve had both my knees reconstructed,” says Joe Rogan, who’s standing behind him. “Man up, we’re pirates now,” he says and pushes him off the edge. 

I’ve been waiting behind, pretending to help people jump off the plane; just like, uselessly holding my hand out. I just didn’t want to jump and stand in the sun and wait for everyone, because I foolishly packed my sunblock in my checked bag, which I will probably never see again, but I’ll be damned if I get a sunburn because Elon’s stupid samurai spaceship crashed. I grab a samurai sword  (just in case), take one last look back at the empty cabin and jump down onto the sand. 

It’s really hot. Like, crowded NYC subway in mid-August hot. I’ve already finished the water bottle I brought, and as the sedatives wear off I realize I’m hungry. I take for granted that we’ll be rescued because maybe 2% of the world’s wealth is traipsing through the jungle right now, but I can’t help but imagine the headlines if we aren’t: “PayPal mafia sleeps with the fishes,” “World free of its most annoying tycoons,” “Emily Ratakoeski (sp?) lost with a bunch of rich nerds,” etc. “Leonardo DiCapitated” would have been a really good one, but Leo was apparently the only invitee who declined the invitation, probably because Emily Ratejkoski (sp?) is the youngest female guest. Jeff Bezos starts singing 99 Bottles of Beer on the Wall. 

“Are you fucking kidding me, Bezos?” yells Jack Dorsey, who has been silent the entire trip. With that hideous beard and those ghastly Earth Runners he wears, I had mistaken him for a serene but lost homeless person when I saw him meditating in the lounge at Teterboro. I’m about to make a joke about how Jack Dorsey kind of looks like Tom Hanks at the very end of Cast Away when I hear stirring in the jungle. Two large, mostly naked bodies covered in mud and some kind of loin cloth explode from the dense vegetation, and within two seconds Elon Musk is gone with them. 

“What the fuck just happened?” asks Joe Rogan, who had been right behind Elon. I spin around, clutching the samurai sword, totally ready to drop it and scream like a little girl if there are more attackers. 

“Looks like we have a restless native problem,” says Richard Branson.

“Shhhhhh!” Margot Robbie is crouched down, performatively listening. All I can hear is Reid Hoffman’s heavy breathing. “I don’t think there are any more of them,” she says. “There’s nothing we can do about Elon. We need to keep looking for water, and the ground seems to be getting wetter, which means we’re getting closer to it.” I’m wondering if all Australians know this kind of stuff or if she learned survival skills while shooting Barbie when, as if on cue, a torrential downpour begins.  

“Did anyone bring an umbrella?” asks Emily Ratokouske (sp?). 

“Keep walking!” shouts Margot Robbie over the rain. “There’s definitely a clearing ahead.”

“Blood Boy needs nutrition,” whines Bryan Johnson. His son does, in fact, look a bit pale, but not as nearly ghoulishly pale as his progenitor. 

I squint through the rain running down my face and I see what Margot Robbie saw: light is indeed streaming through the trees. The group intuitively picks up the pace except for Reid Hoffman, who has fallen behind. I hear something that doesn’t make the slightest bit of sense, a sort of rhythmic thumping. Could it be some kind of terrible seismic event that will end us all? Have we come to an actual Jurassic Island, and is a T-rex coming to seek vengeance for the skull of one of its ancestors that was purchased by one of the guests that’s now collecting dust in his living room? 

“Wait, I know that bass line,” says Jeff Bezos. 

“Does anyone else smell grilled branzino?” asks Richard Branson. 

The group is now trotting through the jungle towards the light. The rain has stopped, and I hear a sort of whirring sound from the sky. The mossy, damp ground is now mixed with sand and rock. I’m now certain I hear music. I can’t be hallucinating yet, because there was no staff to dose us. 

“Oh my god!” screams Margot Robbie ahead of us. 

“You gotta be fucking kidding me,” says Sergey Brin. 

“You sneaky bastard,” says Richard Branson. 

“Please tell me that isn’t Leo,” says Emily Whateverkowski (sp?). 

The whole group of us (except for Reid Hoffman) now stands on the banks of a clear, mile-wide azure-blue bay bordered by jungle and huge expanses of sandbars. Floating maybe a hundred feet off shore is a megayacht, and perched on the bow is Leonardo DiCaprio, who grins and waves spastically like a bloated 11-year-old with a goatee. I spot Diplo/Wes on the top level of the yacht, flanked by an array of Funktion-One speakers that support several moderately attractive dancing speaker girls wearing camouflage bikinis and headbands. The entire staff is militarily lined up in front of a dozen inflatable tenders, and Elon Musk is in the center of them on the shoulders of the two loin-clothed “natives” looking every bit like a slightly taller, self-satisfied Kim Jung Un. 

“Surprise!” he says. “I had you going, didn’t I.” Elon brings an iPad to his face and presses something on it. Rain falls down only on Jeff Bezos. 

“Fuck you, Musk!” he says. I look up and see that the whirring I heard is a fleet of large drones carrying water tanks. Elon laughs; I wonder if he’s already been dosed now that we have staff again. Everyone else laughs now, too, relieved and bewildered. 

“You cheeky bugger,” grins Richard Branson. 

“Welcome to Diego Garcia, a militarized atoll in the Indian Ocean that is definitely not available to tourists,” says Elon. “I have engineered this Peak Experience to out-peak every Peak Experience in the history of Peak Experiences,” says Elon. “We’ve been to the best parties in the world, but now, thanks to the generous assistance of Michael Bay, Jerry Bruckheimer and the British Military we are now the only people in the world who have survived a plane crash and immediately thereafter partied on a yacht once owned by a Russian Oligarch, which is now the property of the United States Government.”

“That’s Dillbar,” whines Emily Areyoufuckingkiddingmekowski (sp?). “I’ve danced on that boat before.” 

“Well then go back and dance on the fucking fake plane wreck that I spent $10 million to have built!” shouts Elon. Adrien Grenier emerges from the water behind him wearing an unnecessarily small blue speedo that matches both the water and his eyes. 

“I’m alive!” he chirps, clearing the ambiguity from the humid air. 

My personal wellness attendant approaches me with a large bottle of Acqua di Cristallo Tributo a Modigliani and a small cup. 

“Welcome back from death,” she says with a smile. “May I offer you some water and your obligatory dose of acid blended in with Lipo-spheric® vitamin-C?”

“No one must take their dose until I say!” shouts Elon. “It is essential that all guests be on the same drug on the same timeline, otherwise it will lower the height of the Peak Experience. Take your dose on the count of two, because one additional second with this crowd would cost more than a finance bro makes in a lifetime. ONE-TWO!” Everyone knocks back their dose. 

“Alright, everyone onto the tenders!” announces Elon. Everyone stumbles into the boats and they leave the shore, an armada of privilege. 

“Wait for me!” shouts Reid Hoffman, who has finally emerged from the jungle. 

“Swim!” shouts Elon. “You need the exercise.” Adrien Grenier laughs a bit too hard. Elon pushes him out of the tender. “You too, pretty boy!” 

We’re now in the large shadow of the megayacht, and a hundred members of staff are lined up, waving down at us.

“I’M THE KING OF THE WORLD,” bellows Leo, still on the bow. I suspect he jumped the gun on his dose. 

“Not anymore!” yells Elon as he pulls out his iPad. Within seconds, the entire fleet of rain drones are above him, creating the world’s smallest and most expensive monsoon. 

“Fuck you, Elon!” cries Leo. Everyone roars with laughter.  

As we board the swim platform of the yacht I let out sigh, resigned that from this point on I’ll be following the well-worn grooves of yet another entirely predictable Peak Experience - vats of caviar, surprise mega DJ appearances, fire dancers, a labyrinthine sex dungeon in the bowels of the boat, a human sacrifice, etcetera - but then something wonderful and totally unexpected happens, and my faith in the universe’s ability to surprise and delight is returned: I realize that I need to poop.