Elon Musk isn’t someone we usually associate with sports, though based on the below photo shared to his 127 million Twitter followers, the tech mogul of SpaceX and Tesla fame appears to have a soft spot for the Oakland A’s.
Though his Oakland fandom makes sense on some level—most of his businesses are headquartered in the Bay Area—there’s a certain irony in Musk, whose $170.1-billion net worth makes him the second-wealthiest person on the planet, rooting for a plucky underdog like the A’s, a team synonymous with fiscal responsibility, a frugal, mom-and-pop operation run on a shoestring budget.
Has Musk been a closet Bash Brothers fan this whole time, longing for the days of Mark McGwire and Jose Canseco clubbing mammoth home runs to all corners of the Oakland Coliseum? Is he secretly an admirer of Billy Beane’s “Moneyball” tactics, outwitting his deep-pocketed opponents with superior scouting and analytics? Or is Musk looking to build his portfolio by investing in a new waterfront stadium, saving the perennially underfunded A’s from financial ruin? There’s just so much to unpack.
As much as we’d like to attach a hidden meaning to everything Musk does, a billionaire entrepreneur wearing a baseball jersey probably doesn’t warrant a thesis-level dissection and can probably be accepted at face value. For all we know, he could have just liked the color scheme or wanted to seem relatable, presenting himself as an everyman who loves nothing more than enjoying a night out at the ballpark, eating soft-serve out of an ice cream helmet while cheering on Seth Brown and Tony Kemp.
Unless he’s ponying up the money needed to keep them in Oakland, it’s debatable whether the A’s would even want to be associated with Musk, whose controversial takeover of Twitter has contributed to his image crisis, getting booed off the stage after comedian Dave Chappelle introduced him at his standup show last month in nearby San Francisco. Still, at least the A’s are being talked about for something other than their recent fire sale, unloading Sean Murphy, Chris Bassitt, Matt Chapman, Sean Manaea, Frankie Montas and Matt Olson, all in a year span.
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