Why Tolkein would have ‘hated’ Elon Musk

Elon Musk might hate the new Lord of the Rings series, but a writer has claimed that J.R.R Tolkein wouldn’t have liked the Tesla CEO much either.

Musk recently threw shade at Jeff Bezos over Amazon’s new series, as the two richest men in the world continued their feud.

In a clear dig at Bezos, the SpaceX and Tesla boss hit out at the first episode by writing: "Tolkien is turning in his grave.

“Almost every male character so far is a coward, a jerk or both. Only Galadriel is brave, smart and nice.”

However, there’s a reason why Tolkein himself would probably have disliked Musk.

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The reason? Because he really didn’t like technology. Of almost any sort.

As writer and Tolkien fan Sean Thomason wrote on Twitter: “Impossible to overstate how much Tolkien would hate Elon Musk and his industrial tech empire. Tolkien didn’t even like trains. Regular ass steam engine TRAINS.”

While the extent of his aversion to technology is disputed by some Tolkein experts, the author developed a reputation thanks mainly to the correspondence documented in the 1981 volume The Letters of J. R. R. Tolkien.

In a letter to his son written in 1944, he wrote: “How I wish the 'infernal combustion' engine had never been invented. Or (more difficult still since humanity and engineers in special are both nitwitted and malicious as a rule) that it could have been put to rational uses — if any.”

Musk isn't a fan of the new Amazon seriesGetty/Amazon

At any rate, it doesn’t really matter what Musk thinks about the new series – but if the Rotten Tomatoes scores are anything to go by, the viewing public have a few issues with the series too.

The show fell victim to “review-bombing” with a Rotten Tomatoes audience score of just 39 per cent after the first episode aired.

Meanwhile, the critic score on the popular review-aggregation site sits at a much more impressive 84 per cent.