The Onion and other satire w/ layers

Stressing that the billionaire’s completely erratic behavior had strained the already fraught relationships, sources confirmed Thursday that a rift was widening between Elon Musk and anyone who had ever met him. “Elon’s megalomania and tendency to lash out indiscriminately seem to have soured things with every person he’s encountered in his entire life,” said an anonymous source close to the embattled tech mogul, adding that Musk’s staunch refusal to engage in self-reflection or address his many off-putting personal tics had so far estranged him from the White House, his business partners, his neighbors, the mothers of his children, the children themselves, interviewers, investors, restaurant waitstaff, and all others who had directly interacted with him in any manner for any length of time. [...]

Reconsidering his recent departure from Washington as the words ‘YOU DIED’ appeared once more on his screen, billionaire Elon Musk reportedly weighed a return to politics Monday after his 60th death on the tutorial level of Elden Ring Nightreign. “Seems like these enemies are glitched to be unkillable—maybe I should stop back by the DOGE offices until the devs roll out a patch to fix these hitboxes,” Musk said as he waited to respawn for another attempt, with eyewitnesses reporting that he had died against a weak, sluggish enemy intended only to teach him the basics of lock-on targeting. [...]

After an intensely violent hockey match, the Florida Panthers have formed a line to shake hands and assure their opponents, the Carolina Hurricanes, that they feel no resentment after hours spent roughhousing, fighting, and bashing each other’s heads into the sideboards.

Though many doctors suggest seeking immediate medical attention after far more minor head injuries than those sustained during a game, hockey experts are just happy to see the players are being such good sports.

“They really gave it their all tonight,” Panthers head coach Paul Maurcie said about his players as they struggled to grab their opponents hands. “You love to see it.”

Fans have been disappointed by the lack of injuries in recent games, complaining that if the players can remember their names by the end of the match, are they really even trying? [...]

In an effort to give the impression that they had been burning the midnight oil while CEO Elon Musk was away in Washington, D.C., employees at Tesla reportedly scrambled Thursday to make the office look like they’d been sleeping there. “Elon’s going to be back any minute, so make sure to throw some dirty clothes next to the bathroom sink to make it seem like we’ve been showering here,” said Tesla engineer Todd Costello, who appeared panicked as he scarfed down pizza and threw the crusts all over his coworkers’ desks, explaining that his boss would be furious if he found out the staff had experienced even a semblance of work-life balance over the past few months. [...]

Saying the plight of white South African farmers affected him on a deeply personal level, President Donald Trump issued a statement Thursday in which he shared his own experiences as a victim of white genocide. “I’ve kept quiet about my past out of a fear that I could still be persecuted, but I too know what it’s like to live under a Black president who wants to see your entire race destroyed,” said Trump, adding that he had narrowly survived the attempt to eradicate white people and their culture by hiding for months in his 126-room Palm Beach resort. [...]

Senior citizens are targeted by a wide variety of scams, but this is the most heartless, scummy con we’ve heard about yet: Scammers tricked this elderly woman into buying the Cleveland Browns. [...]

The United Nations has cautioned that there may soon be no new phrases left to distract from what is happening in Gaza, with thesauruses across the globe stretched to breaking point.

“Terms such as ‘military presence’, ‘voluntary immigration’ and ‘bombs are falling’ have done a lot of heavy lifting since the ‘conflict’ started. But as reporting on the ‘humanitarian crisis,’ continues, people may be looking for new terms,” a UN spokesperson explained. [...]

Some exceptions will reportedly be made on the basis of spelling, with men named Nicky, for example, being eligible for combat deployment so long as their name ends with a y instead of an i. A military spokesperson told reporters tabs will be kept on once-masculine names that are starting to become girly, the way Charlie and Riley seem to have lately.

Whale vocalizations, or “whale songs,” have long fascinated biologists and nature lovers alike, but while it’s been theorized that the hauntingly beautiful “music” some whales produce aids in sexual selection, there hasn’t been a clear consensus as to its purpose. Well, all of that just changed, as marine biologists have revealed that whale songs are the whale equivalent of online hate speech.

Promising to lift export controls on AI chips if they received the rare first-edition trading card in return, U.S. trade negotiators reportedly offered China access to advanced semiconductors Tuesday in exchange for a holographic Charizard. “We’ll give you state-of-the-art Nvidia GPUs if you give us a PSA 10 Gem Mint holographic Charizard,” Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said to a Chinese trade representative, later explaining to reporters that the Trump administration hoped to shore up America’s complete set of the original 151 and was willing to part with its most sophisticated machine-learning processors to achieve that goal.