When Elon Musk admitted drawing starship design inspiration from ‘The Dictator’

In a conversation that has since become something of a cult anecdote, SpaceX founder and CEO Elon Musk confirmed that a scene from the 2012 film The Dictator played a role in shaping the design of the Starship spacecraft’s nose. The revelation, which dates back to a 2021 podcast appearance, resurfaced in late 2023 when Musk responded to a social-media claim with a simple ‘100’ emoji, a gesture widely interpreted as emphatic agreement. The Dictator, a satire starring Sacha Baron Cohen as Admiral General Aladeen of the fictional Republic of Wadiya, features a moment in which the leader insists that a missile be made ‘more pointy’, saying, ‘Round is not scary. Pointy is scary.’ Musk admitted that he had told his engineers to make Starship’s head more pointy for much the same reason. The clip of the podcast has again resurfaced reigniting widespread reaction from social media users, across the platforms.

Starship is a 171 foot tall, fully reusable transportation system designed to carry both crew and cargo to Earth orbit, the moon, Mars and beyond. It has a payload capacity of 100-150 metric tons. The craft’s sharp nose, though not aerodynamically superior, Musk himself has joked that the change was ‘arguably slightly worse’ for performance. The pointed design has since become one of the rocket’s defining visual features. It is the most powerful launch system ever developed and has the ability to vary up to 100 people on long-duration, interplanetary flights, according to the SpaceX website.

The anecdote first emerged publicly when Musk appeared on comedian Joe Rogan’s long-form podcast in February 2021, where he elaborated on the influence of the satirical movie on his thinking.

“You literally told them to make the Starship more pointy because of the movie ‘The Dictator?'” Mr Rogan asked in the podcast. “Yep. And they know it, too. It’s not like they’re unaware of it. I thought it would be funny to make it more pointy, so we did,” the billionaire replied. He stated that it does not give Starship an aerodynamic edge and it is “arguably slightly worse,” but “it looks cooler.” In The Dictator, Aladeen’s critique of his engineers’ blunt-headed missile led him to demand a pointier shape, a line Musk openly referenced when explaining why Starship’s head was altered from an earlier, blunter concept.