With his wild antics and controversial characters, many of Sacha Baron Cohen's movies aren't necessarily the type you'd think of as inspiring.
Unless you're Elon Musk, apparently.
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The SpaceX founder openly admitted that he was inspired by Baron Cohen when it came to designing his Starship spacecraft - the world's 'most powerful launch vehicle ever developed'.
Developed through SpaceX, Starship took its first flight in April 2023 following years of development and design, which Musk spoke about when he appeared on The Joe Rogan Podcast.
During the interview, Rogan clarified with Musk how he 'literally told them to make the Starship more pointy' after seeing one of Baron Cohen's movies.
The movie in question was the 2012 film The Dictator, in which Baron Cohen plays the titular dictator, Aladeen, who travels to New York in order to address the United Nations Security Council.
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In one part of the film, Aladeen inspects the creation of a missile and tells the designers: "It is too round at the top, it needs to be pointy. Round is not scary. Pointy is scary. This will put a smile on the faces of the enemy."
Upon being questioned by Rogan, Musk agreed that it was Baron Cohen's movie that had influenced the design of the Starship.
"They know it too," Musk said, seemingly referring to the designers.
"It's not like they were unaware of it. I thought it would be funny if we made the rocket more pointy, so we did."
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Rogan questioned whether making the rocket more pointy had 'any effect on the aerodynamics', but Musk assured there was no such impact.
"We can make it way blunter and it would be fine," he said, though he admitted that it was 'arguably slightly worse' for the rocket to be pointy.
"It looks cooler," he concluded, and many X users couldn't argue with his decision.
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"The funny thing I like about Elon musk is his sense of humor," one X user wrote, adding: "Recently he admitted space X starship Design 'pointy' inspired by the movie 'The dictator.'
Another wrote: "U know elon musk asked for the starship top to 'be more pointy' because of the movie the dictator!!! What a beast of a man."
Starship, which is made up of the spacecraft and Super Heavy rocket, is designed to be fully reusable.
It is intended to carry both crew and cargo to Earth orbit and beyond, with locations including 'the Moon, Mars and beyond'.
Topics: Elon Musk, SpaceX, Sacha Baron Cohen, Joe Rogan, Technology
Emily Brown