Elon Musk goes by many names: Musky, Space Dad, the soon-to-be-first-trillionaire. Lots of fun nicknames. One nickname that currently doesn’t come to mind right away for him? Movie star, even though it’s very true! Anyone who’s seen Iron Man 2 will know that Elon Musk made a very unique cameo appearance. Unlike the rest of the billionaires in the world, Elon Musk seems to relish his place in pop culture. Between dating and having an aptly-named child with Grimes, to his overly-casual news appearances, to making news with a variety of increasingly sci-fi-esque SpaceX initiatives, Musk has an endlessly entertaining public persona. This includes his work in movies, which admittedly hasn’t ever taken off. Instead, his Hollywood work peaked with his appearance in Iron Man 2. But how did he even get it in the first place? And who approached him? We wanted to find out.
It Came From A Good Place
And by that we mean Robert Downey Jr. spent a long time learning from Musk for his character. “Robert Downey Jr turned to Musk for help getting into character as Tony Stark for the 2008 film Iron Man. Musk’s enthusiastic embrace of technology for technology’s sake and his desire to push the limits of what was possible for private enterprise made him a close real-world analog for Marvel’s billionaire arms dealer,” which then extended into the work on Iron Man 2. The two of them became friends, and Downey managed to utilize those greased wheels to get a big benefit for the production as a whole.
And Had Mutual Benefits
Not only does Musk get to say he was in Iron Man 2, but the production company got a huge benefit as well. Locations costs eat up budget like nothing else. While many production companies run with budgets in the millions-of-dollars ranges, they still need to be conscious of getting the best location for the cheapest cost in order to not blow it all on one niche place. Like the SpaceX facility, for example. Picture how much it would cost to rent Willy Wonka’s candy factory for a week. Now throw in all the oompa loompa salaries and multiply it by four. That’s what we’re guessing renting the SpaceX facility would cost. Even the production company of Iron Man 2 doesn’t have that kind of money. So what did they do? They just asked! “‘Iron Man 2,’ we filmed at SpaceX… [Musk] let us film there for free. He’s been a very good friend of the Marvel family there, and we’ve maintained a friendship with him,” which we hope extends to other Marvel movies too. Musk is now canon in that universe.
Production designers everywhere can only dream of getting a location as ready-made and specific as the SpaceX factory. Musk himself was very willing to lend it out to the Marvel universe, and everyone is grateful that he did. Although, if the man who based his most famous role off of you came and asked a favor…yeah, we’d agree too. Robert Downey Jr.’s portrayal of Tony Stark is kind of inspired by Elon Musk, which is why they embraced him and gave him a cameo in Iron Man 2.