‘The Boys’ Just Sent Its Elon Musk Stand-In to Space and He Didn’t Come Back

When ‘The Boys‘ series finale dropped on May 20, fans expected blood, chaos, and one final swing at the culture that spawned it. What they got was all of that, plus a cameo so sharp and so brief that it lasted less than a minute before disappearing into the void of outer space. Quite literally.

The Season 5 finale introduces an entirely new character named Günter Van Ellis, described as the richest man in the world, an amateur astronaut, and a father of 17 children. He also wears a black “We Believe in Homelander” hat and rambles about white fertility rates. If that sounds like someone specific to you, showrunner Eric Kripke has some thoughts on that.

The Günter Van Ellis Elon Musk Parody, Explained

The blink-and-you’ll-miss-it cameo of Günter Van Ellis was played by Ivan Sherry, a Toronto-based actor largely known for providing his vocals to ‘Star Wars Outlaws’. His entire screen time amounts to one very loaded scene in the White House, where Oh Father, played by Daveed Diggs, introduces him to Homelander as the series finale gets rolling.

Van Ellis tries to pitch Homelander directly, saying “I’d love to bend your ear about white fertility rates,” while Oh Father explains to Homelander who the man is. The details layered into the character are anything but accidental. Every element, from the astronaut jokes to the child count to the hat, is a deliberate and stacked reference to one real-world figure.

Ellis refers to himself as a “disruptor” and wears a “We Believe In Homelander” hat strikingly similar to Musk’s Dark MAGA hat. The show, never known for holding back, stacked as many identifiable signifiers into a single cameo as it possibly could before pulling the trigger on the punchline.

This was not even the first time ‘The Boys’ universe took aim at Musk, as Gen V Season 2 previously featured a goat named “Elon” that was violently dismembered on screen during a training exercise.

How Homelander Takes the Richest Man in the World to Space

When The Deep shows up in the finale, Homelander takes the opportunity to rid himself of Van Ellis by grabbing him and flying him out to space. The journey is instantaneous. Homelander is back on Earth within seconds, and the fate of Van Ellis is left entirely to implication.

Homelander’s explanation upon returning is delivered with chilling casualness: “He was an astronaut. I took him to space,” he tells Oh Father when asked where Van Ellis went. The line became one of the most-quoted moments of the finale almost immediately after the episode dropped.

The moment serves as one of the finale’s most overt political statements, fitting into the episode’s larger arc which sees Homelander spiraling further into authoritarian control before ultimately meeting his own downfall. It functions as both a darkly comedic beat and a pointed commentary on the relationship between wealth, power, and the authoritarian figures they tend to attach themselves to.

When asked about the apparent Musk nod in the finale, Kripke jokingly told Deadline, “What made you think it was Elon Musk?” before explaining that the character had been pitched throughout the season as “something that is really existing in the world” and was finally given a moment that fit, co-written by David Reed and Judalina Neira.

The Boys Series Finale Sparks a Real-World Elon Musk Reaction

Musk’s reaction to ‘The Boys’ finale was ultimately sparked not by the Van Ellis scene itself, but by a tweet that referred to Homelander’s ending as “a deranged sexual humiliation fantasy projected onto Trump,” to which Musk responded with a single word: “Pathetic.”

Kripke quote-tweeted Musk’s response with visible glee, writing “OMG this is his review of what ‘The Boys’ did to Homelander, I’ll never get a better review ever.” From there, the exchange snowballed into one of the more entertaining pieces of post-finale drama the series has ever generated, which is saying something.

Musk fired back at Kripke directly, writing “I didn’t watch the show tbh, here’s the second best review” before adding that “Kripke probably got flack from his wife’s bf for Homelander being used in based memes and had to write that ending as a groveling apology.” He then added to a separate reply that he was “not upset, just remarking that the ending sounds fake and gay.”

Kripke, when asked by Gold Derby whether he was worried about Musk coming after him the way Musk had gone after ‘The Odyssey’, simply laughed and said no, adding “I think it’s hilarious the way he’s coming after The Odyssey.”

Eric Kripke’s Final Statement on a Show That Never Blinked

Throughout five seasons, ‘The Boys’ wore its satirical targets on its sleeve without apology. Kripke explained to Polygon that the timing of Homelander declaring himself a God in the finale coincided with Trump releasing a real image of himself as God, saying “It’s just really hard to out-satire this world.”

Throughout its five-season run, ‘The Boys’ consistently incorporated real-world parallels into its narrative, using exaggerated characters to reflect public figures and political dynamics. Günter Van Ellis was not a detour from that mission. He was the fullest expression of it, dispatched with a one-liner and a trip into the void.

The Boys’ finale went further by having Billy Butcher, played by Karl Urban, ultimately strip Homelander of his powers and kill him, with Antony Starr and Jack Quaid both delivering final performances that the cast reacted to publicly. Van Ellis never got to see any of it. He was already somewhere between the atmosphere and the moon before the real showdown even began.

The show ended the only way it could, swinging at the biggest targets it could find and daring them to respond. Given that at least one of them actually did, you have to wonder whether Kripke is already somewhere quietly drafting a spin-off just to see how far the chaos will travel.

If you watched the finale, we want to know: did Homelander sending Günter Van Ellis to space land as the savage satirical gut-punch it was clearly designed to be, or did it feel like too quick a moment to carry the weight the show was aiming for?