Elon Musk just shut down the flat Earth conspiracy theorists

Humanity has been defined by great feuds between unstoppable forces and immovable objects.

Henry VII and Richard III, for example. Or Joan Crawford and Bette Davis.

Anyone remember the Bloods and the Crips? Hulk Hogan and Andre the Giant? Jesus of Nazareth and the Roman Empire? The list goes on.

Fast-forward to 2018 and there's another great feud raging between two titans in their fields; two great institutions who will define the 21st century when it is finally confined to the history books.

Elon Musk and the Flat Earth Society.

Musk is the 53rd richest person in the world, the CEO of Tesla, SpaceX and Neuralink, and this week blasted the most powerful rocket on Earth into space to drop off one of his Tesla cars which will now float between Earth and Mars for as long as a billion years. Standard.

The Flat Earth Society is a group of people who, urm, think that the Earth is flat, not round.

They first crossed paths in November last year when Elon pontificated that if there's a Flat Earth Society, there should surely be a Flat Mars Society.

To which the Flat Earth Society subsequently threw down the gauntlet.

And it seems as though the challenge was dutifully accepted, with many people (on Twitter, obviously) thinking that Elon launched his massive rocket into space so he could troll flat Earthers in the absolute best way possible – from outer space.

This week, the SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket released a Tesla car into space being driven by a dummy in a spacesuit dubbed Starman. The booster rockets then safely returned to Earth.

Unsurprisingly, Musk took great pleasure in sharing the incredible scenes to millions of people on his Twitter account.

People couldn't help notice that big, round, spherical and distinctly not-flat blue thing floating around in the background of the shots.

If Andre the Giant is the Flat Earth Society, Hulk Hogan is Elon Musk.

More: Here’s why Nasa is 'lying' about the Earth being round – according to a Flat Earther

More: Elon Musk asked the Flat Earth society a brilliant question. Their response was even better

Watch: SpaceX's most powerful rocket to date, Falcon Heavy, launches from the Kennedy Space Centre in Florida.