Friday Funny: Tech Genius Realizes His Invention Has Already Been Invented

"Kicking himself as the full scope of his ignorance dawned on him, Elon Musk reportedly admitted his embarrassment Thursday after realizing he was proposing an idea for a thing that already exists," according to a fake news story on the satirical site The Onion that should not be treated in the slightest as an actual thing that happened.

The fake Elon Musk is quoted in the article saying, "The most embarrassing part is that I’ve used it before, too, and I have been for years. That must be where I got the great idea in the first place."

Like all satire, this article isn't real, but it also hits on some truths. In this case, that tech companies and tech industry leaders have a habit of taking credit for inventing things that already exist. Roommates and buses (the latter more than once, in fact, including once by Musk) are two famous examples. The Washington Post and Salon have both gathered lists of all the things Silicon Valley thought it invented that already existed.