Elon Musk, Tesla and SpaceX CEO, put up a post captioned “ehh, good enough”, and the quote is attributed to Mediocrates. 

Mediocrates is not a real person, but the name is a riff on Greek philosopher, Socrates. As per Urban Dictionary, Mediocrates is a person of average, or below-average intelligence and skills, who claims to be an expert. 

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The joke made by the world’s richest man isn’t new either. In 2021, a Twitter profile called Dad Jokes, posted “What do you call your average ancient Greek? Mediocrates.” 

A Google search of Mediocrates turns up plenty of merchandise which includes quotes from the seemingly fictional Greek philosopher. The Mediocrates joke has also found a response from an individual on LinkedIn, who noted that the philosophy of “good enough” has plenty of adherents in the world, and cited the Burmese proverb that goes “The person who aims at excellence will be above mediocrity; he who aims at mediocrity will be far short of it.”

Despite Musk’s joke, the 51-year-old is far from mediocre, and seemingly isn’t a person who would ever advocate for mediocrity. 

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Musk, in recent years, gave up several material possessions since they were weighing him down. Instead, he decided to focus on the future of human civilization and establishing colonies on Mars. 

While Mediocrates might be fictional, Aristotle was an actual Greek philosopher and a contemporary of Socrates. He came up with “arete” or personal excellence, which rests on virtue and goodness. The Texas-based entrepreneur has made great strides in terms of excellence, through his numerous innovations – be it the change to electric cars via Tesla or the space exploration advancement through SpaceX. Musk is also trying to provide easy internet access to the world via Starlink and has interests in Hyperloop, a proposed high-speed transportation system. He has ties to Neuralink as well, which is a neural interface technology company. They are reportedly developing a chip that can be embedded in the human brain to record and potentially stimulate brain activity. 

A Twitter user replied to Musk’s most recent post with a comical comparison of Alexanders, moving from the conqueror, Alexander the Great to a squiggly drawing which says Just Alex.

Musk replied to this, saying “Should be Alexander, the Greatest. After all, is there a better Alexander?”