In short
Hwang Dong-hyuk, the creator of Netflix’s Squid Recreation, says the VIP characters now mirror seen billionaires like Elon Musk, who “management the world nearly.”
Musk just lately stepped down from main Trump’s Division of Authorities Effectivity (DOGE), a spending-cut company.
Hwang stated each the present’s plot and actual life show how the ultra-rich, from tech moguls to oligarchs, are “taking off their masks” and brazenly shaping international occasions.
The creator of Squid Recreation says the present’s rich villains more and more mirror real-world billionaires, and Elon Musk, specifically, involves thoughts.
“Elon Musk is in every single place nowadays, proper? All people talks about him,” Hwang Dong-hyuk advised TIME journal on Friday. “Not solely is he the top of an enormous tech firm that controls the world nearly, however he is additionally this showman. After writing [Season 3], in fact I believed, ‘Oh, a number of the VIPs do form of resemble Elon Musk.'”
Musk’s firms, Tesla and SpaceX, have been approached for remark.
The remarks come simply as Squid Recreation Season 3, the ultimate installment of Netflix’s most-watched collection, premiered on June 27, bringing the worldwide phenomenon to a bloody shut.
This time, the present’s billionaire spectators, additionally referred to as the “VIPs,” do greater than watch; they abandon their animal masks and dinner attire to don pink soldier uniforms and personally search out contestants with machine weapons.
The present’s evolving portrayal of the ultra-rich displays Hwang’s frustration with the rising visibility and affect of real-world oligarchs.
The timing is especially noteworthy given Musk’s present internet price of $409.8 billion, which exceeds the GDP of 24 international locations, together with Denmark, Iran, and Malaysia.
“Up to now, people who actually managed the system and maintained energy, they had been hidden behind the scenes,” Hwang advised TIME. “Nonetheless, it’s now not the case, particularly in America.”
“We speak quite a bit about oligarchy nowadays… The individuals who actually management the ability and the system, they now not cover behind a curtain,” he stated. “They willingly take their masks off, nearly as if to declare, ‘We’re those working the whole lot. We’re those in management.’”
The richest man on the earth just lately stepped down from the Trump administration’s Division of Authorities Effectivity (DOGE), created to slash federal spending however mired in controversy over its humanitarian affect and disputed financial savings claims.
Since leaving DOGE, Musk has publicly clashed with Trump over a $2.4 trillion spending invoice, calling it a “disgusting abomination” that undermines the whole lot DOGE achieved.
In the meantime, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos’s lavish Venice wedding ceremony, scheduled the identical weekend as Season 3’s launch, reportedly price $46 million and required 90 personal jets for visitor transportation.
Other than wealth focus, Hwang drew inspiration from worldwide political polarization and South Korea’s latest declaration of martial regulation by former President Yoon Suk-yeol.
Edited by Sebastian Sinclair
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