As the final season of Squid Game dropped on Netflix this weekend, series creator Hwang Dong-hyuk made a striking revelation: Elon Musk—tech mogul, space baron, billionaire showman—served as a key inspiration for the masked VIP villains who orchestrate the show’s deadly survival games. Although these antagonists weren’t originally modeled on any real-life individuals, Hwang admits that by the end of Season 3, it was impossible not to see Musk’s shadow looming behind their opulent masks and terrifying actions.

“Elon Musk is everywhere these days, right?” Hwang noted in a candid post-release interview. “Everybody talks about him. Not only is he the head of a huge tech company that controls the world almost, but he’s also this showman.” That duality—of immense power and theatrical dominance—is precisely what defines the VIPs in Squid Game, who, after lurking in the shadows for two seasons, step into the spotlight in Season 3.

As the show closes its chapter with explosive drama, the metaphor becomes more uncomfortably real: the elite no longer watch from afar. They take off their masks. They enter the game. They kill.

The third season of Squid Game, released on June 27, marks a brutal turning point for the VIPs. First introduced in Season 1’s seventh episode, a group of grotesquely wealthy, English-speaking men—“dirtbag millionaires,” as Hwang described them—attend the Games in person.

They lounge in decadent surroundings, sip champagne, and gamble on human lives like bettors at a horse track. Pampered by the Game’s mysterious Front Man, they exude untouchable privilege. But by Season 3, that detachment disappears. “They take their masks off and go into the game and kill others with their own hands,” Hwang explains.

This terrifying evolution was no coincidence. According to Hwang, it was inspired by observing how global billionaires—especially in America—have become bolder, more exposed, and more powerful than ever. “In the past, those that really controlled the system and maintained power, they were hidden behind the curtain, almost like this big unseen conspiracy,” he said. “However, it’s no longer the case, especially in America. We talk a lot about oligarchy these days, but these so-called big tech owners, they step up, telling everyone who they’re backing with their money. The people who really control the power and the system, they no longer hide behind a curtain. They willingly take their masks off, almost as if to declare, ‘We’re the ones running everything. We’re the ones in control.’”

That declaration is no longer fictional. It’s embedded in our reality. Elon Musk, whose current net worth hovers around $412 billion, commands more wealth than the GDPs of over 170 countries. He’s not just the CEO of Tesla or the founder of SpaceX—he’s an unelected global force who influences currencies, policies, artificial intelligence, and now, politics.

As Donald Trump’s largest campaign donor and a relentless critic of regulation, Musk straddles every possible axis of influence. And in Hwang’s eyes, this is the very definition of a VIP—one with the power to shape lives, economies, and cultures, all while making a spectacle of it.

In Squid Game Season 3, this transformation from hidden to exposed power is given visceral form. The VIPs—no longer content with silent indulgence—don the iconic pink soldier uniforms, pick up weapons, and carry out executions themselves.

Their shift is symbolic of how billionaires in today’s world are no longer satisfied with passive influence. They want active participation. They want visibility. And they want control, even if it means getting blood on their hands.

This commentary resonates even more when set against real-world contrasts. In 2020, at the time of Squid Game’s first season production, there were about 2,000 billionaires globally, holding a collective $8 trillion. As of 2025, that number has exploded to over 3,000, with their collective wealth doubling to more than $16 trillion.

That’s more than the GDP of every nation on Earth except the United States and China. Musk alone commands a fortune greater than the entire economies of countries like Denmark, Malaysia, or Iran.

The decadence of this elite class was further spotlighted by Jeff Bezos’s Venice wedding—a private celebration estimated to cost $46 million and requiring nearly 90 private jets—scheduled to coincide with the release of Squid Game’s final season. It’s as if reality itself is writing Season 4.

The timing underscores the show’s central thesis: that the gap between the ultra-wealthy and the working poor is not only astronomical—it’s grotesque.

At its core, Squid Game has always followed the downtrodden—the debt-ridden, the desperate, the marginalized. Players risk their lives in the hope of escaping systemic poverty, only to find themselves pawns in a game designed by the people who benefit from their misery. While viewers may hate the ruthless decisions of contestants, Hwang is careful to draw the line of blame elsewhere. It’s not the victims who created the game—it’s the billionaires who fund and enjoy it.

In Season 1, the character Oh Il-nam, disguised as Player 001, is later revealed to be the founder of the Game itself. A moneylender with immense wealth, he joined the Game out of boredom, seeking the thrill of watching others struggle for survival. This is the ethos of the VIP class in Hwang’s world: one where morality erodes under the weight of wealth, and human lives become entertainment.

With Season 3, the creator simply removes the final barrier—the mask—and lets these figures act without pretense.

That transparency echoes our real world, where billionaires tweet their thoughts into political firestorms, endorse candidates, dismantle companies, and toy with media narratives as easily as flipping switches. Musk, in particular, has mastered this performative dominance. Whether arguing with regulators, mocking critics, or swinging market values through single posts on X (formerly Twitter), he embodies a new archetype: the unmasked elite who doesn’t just wield power but dares you to stop him.

Even Hwang’s earlier reflections hint at this unsettling mirroring. After Season 1, he noted that one of the VIPs unintentionally resembled Donald Trump—the richest man to ever hold the U.S. presidency. By Season 3, that comparison shifted to Musk, the man who many see as Trump’s ideological successor in tech and business. The realization isn’t just visual—it’s philosophical. Both are showmen. Both bend the rules. Both polarize the world with every decision.

While Hwang maintains that the VIPs were not directly based on real people, the increasing alignment with recognizable figures is no accident. Fiction, after all, reflects truth. And in 2025, the truth is more dystopian than ever. “After writing [Season 3], of course I thought, ‘Oh, some of the VIPs do kind of resemble Elon Musk,’” Hwang admitted. That resemblance—at once unintentional and undeniable—now haunts the series finale.

As David Fincher prepares a U.S. remake of Squid Game, this central metaphor will likely evolve further, especially within the American context Hwang critiques so sharply. In a society where billionaires dominate elections, fund wars of information, and elevate themselves to mythic status, the show’s warning becomes harder to ignore.

The game, it seems, is no longer confined to a fictional island. It’s happening around us—in boardrooms, on social media, in political arenas, and in the homes of those watching from their couches, wondering if they too would sign up for a chance to escape the crushing weight of debt. What Squid Game teaches us through its unflinching gaze is that the true monsters are not those who play the game—but those who build it.

And if the face behind the golden mask starts to resemble one we see on the news every day, that’s not coincidence. That’s the point.