Egypt Opportunity as Elon Musk Tweets About Alien Architects

Egypt has invited SpaceX and Tesla founder Elon Musk to come to see the pyramids for himself after he made a tweet that the ancient monuments were created by aliens. 

Musk had earlier tweeted, “Aliens built the pyramids obv” adding his voice to a common conspiracy theory. The tweet received more than 27,000 comments, with 88,000 retweets and more than 550,000 likes. 

Seeing a tourism marketing opportunity  Egyptian International Cooperation Minister Rania al-Mashat and a former tourism minister replied to Musk, saying, “I follow your work with a lot of admiration, I invite you & Space X to explore the writings about how the pyramids were built and also to check out the tombs of the pyramid builders.” 

She added, “Mr Musk, we are waiting for you,” inviting him to check out the pyramids for himself. 

Elon Musk cleared up his real views on the subject by following up with a link to a BBC article on the private lives of the Pyramid builders in Egypt, which mentions nothing about extraterrestrials. The article was “a sensible summary”, Musk said. 

But that tweet received only 990 comments, 1060 retweets and 17,500 likes. 

Meanwhile, the Giza Pyramids near Cairo were reopened to the public in July, having been shut down for three months due to the coronavirus pandemic. 

Egypt’s tourism sector suffered a decade of turmoil after the 2011 Arab Spring protests and the overthrow of longtime dictator Hosni Mubarak, with militant attacks and political instability keeping many tourists away, according to an AFP report. 

The tourism sector, which accounts for a fifth of the country’s GDP and employs some three million people, had recovered to draw record visitors, around 13.6 million last year when the COVID-19 crisis struck, AFP said.