Netanyahu met with Elon Musk, “perhaps the greatest technological visionary of our time,” who referred to the Negev as the “energy future of the State of Israel.” Musk also lit up a popular Jerusalem bar, capturing the moment on Instagram.
Billionaire and tech business magnate Elon Musk’s visit to Israel was revealed in a series of social media posts from various locations in the country, the first being a video on Instagram Monday night at the Gatsby cocktail bar in Jerusalem. The clip (see below) showed him pouring flaming blue liquid from one glass to another. Captioned “learning how to pour flaming absinthe over a tower of glasses in a Jerusalem speakeasy. Everything’s better with fire…” it got hundreds of thousands of “likes” and thousands of comments.
The 46-year-old South African-born, Canadian-American founder and CEO of electrical and autonomic car company Tesla Inc. and aerospace company SpaceX also spent a couple of hours with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu Tuesday.
“This morning, before coming here, I met with Elon Musk, a man of vision, perhaps the greatest technological visionary of our time. He is a genius,” Netanyahu told the Negev Conference in Dimona.
Musk “told me that ‘Israel is a technological power.’ He said that he appreciates what we are doing here. And then he said, and he did not know I was coming here, he told me ‘The Negev could provide you with all your energy needs. The Negev is the energy future of the State of Israel. You could spread solar systems here that would give you more energy than you need or could need. Clean energy.’”
“I tell you what he told me: ‘If you only want it’ and I tell you that I want it. I want a vibrant, flourishing and developing Negev. And we will continue to do this, to develop it as has never been done in the history of Israel.”