After months of negotiations, Elon Musk has officially purchased the North Pole and Santa’s Workshop. Musk, who proposed earlier this year buying the North Pole as he believed that Christmas was “too woke,” attempted to withdraw from the multi-billion dollar deal because of reports indicating around five per cent of toys manufactured in Santa’s Workshop are “cheap knock-offs.” However, in the face of litigation, he reversed course and completed the purchase.
The first weeks after Musk’s acquisition have been marked by multiple changes. Looking to make the Pole profitable, Musk laid off half of the Workshop’s elves. These lay-offs were based on how productive each elf was — the more toys an elf produced last year, the more likely they were retained.
The lay-offs raised eyebrows, as complex toys like battery-powered cars and miniature kitchens require more time to make, so the elves specialized in the production of those toys make less than those in other departments and thus were disproportionately let go. This has led to uncertainty over whether or not the Workshop will be able to meet their Christmas quotas.
Morale among remaining staff has declined since, as a Workshop-wide email notifying remaining employees that “to build a festive Christmas 2.0, we will need to be extremely hardcore.” The email prompted hundreds more of resignations, further reducing the North Pole’s already-skeletal workforce.
One former employee, who for his own safety chose to remain anonymous, spoke to the Gauntlet on the condition of anonymity.
“The email was the last straw. It’s like, I’ve given a decade of my life and thousands of hours of labour just to be told that I need to start going ‘hardcore,’ whatever that means. So I said fuck it, I’m out, I’ll go work for the Easter Bunny,” he said.
Furthermore, Musk announced the creation of Christmas Red ‘n’ Green, a premium subscription service where people can pay eight dollars a month to be put on the nice list. This has caused controversy, with critics arguing that its introduction has devalued the nice list. Amelia Sullivan, an exhausted mother of four, said that the threat of coal in their stockings was the only thing keeping her children from totally misbehaving during the holiday season.
“It’s a slap in the face to parents. Before, you’d get on the nice list by actually being nice, but now for eight bucks you can get your name on there even if you’re naughty,” she said.
Musk has also announced that Santa’s sleigh and reindeer will be replaced with the new Tesleigh, a sleigh utilizing Tesla’s autopilot technology. However, given Tesla’s track record of its autopilot causing crashes, detractors are concerned that Santa Claus may meet a similar fate on Christmas Eve.
In lieu of this information, the Gauntlet encourages readers to not drink too much eggnog this holiday season, no matter how much despair they feel over the North Pole’s new management.
This article is part of our humour section.
