Like Christmas and birthdays, April the first loses its comedic luster with age.
Sorry to be the Scrooge of 'bants', but these days April 1 is an annoying sea of marketing twaddle. It was fun when we were kids and literally everything in the world was funny and innocent, but nowadays it's all just a cheap opportunity to 'look cool' and 'build brand identity' for the majority of car manufacturers.
But, there was one person who nailed it. And he's Elon Musk.
The CEO of Tesla has been battling a number of forest fires lately, including production bottlenecks with the new Model 3, continual claims of poor build quality and reliability across the 3 and the Model X, and most recently a fatal crash that claimed the life of a California man who at the time was using Tesla's 'Autopilot' function.
And those all feed in to an ongoing narrative (led mainly by the media, somewhat admittedly) that the company, yet to turn a profit, is going to go bankrupt sooner rather than later.
For better and for worse, bankruptcy was Musk's chosen form of April Fool basis, and yesterday (April 2 in Kiwi time, April 1 in American time) he posted this:
"Despite intense efforts to raise money, including a last-ditch mass sale of Easter Eggs, we are sad to report that Tesla has gone completely and totally bankrupt," he says.
"So bankrupt, you can't believe it."
It's clearly a bit of a lighthearted jab at the press that are on his case, delivered in a typical 'no stuffs given' Musk manner.
"There are many chapters of bankruptcy and, as critics so rightly pointed out, Tesla has them *all*," he adds in a latter tweet. "Including Chapter 14 and a half (the worst one)."
Click here to read the full Twitter thread, which is full of good calls from lovers and haters of Tesla alike.
Like or loathe Musk, you've got to admit that the man knows how to stir the pot — both through his words and through the actions of companies that he helms.
Although, I'm still not gonna buy a Model 3.