Is Young Sheldon based on Elon Musk?

Both have genius minds, but there might be more to it — is Young Sheldon based on SpaceX and Tesla’s own Elon Musk?

Every once in a while there is a genius so unforgettable that the whole world knows who they are. In real life, that’s Elon Musk, the owner of X, Tesla, and SpaceX. On TV, it’s Sheldon Cooper, whose childhood is being chronicled through Young Sheldon.

In real-time, Sheldon is about to head off to Caltech at the end of Season 7, changing the trajectory of his education for good. It’s here that the prequel is set to collide with the world of The Big Bang Theory, with Caltech being Sheldon’s workplace in his adult years.

Despite their intellect, does anything actually link the two together — or is Young Sheldon actually supposed to be Elon Musk?

Is Young Sheldon supposed to be Elon Musk?

No, Young Sheldon isn’t based on Elon Musk, but the SpaceX founder did have a cameo role in the Season 1 episode ‘A Patch, a Modem, and a Zantac’ as well as The Big Bang Theory’s ‘The Platonic Permutation.’

While there has never been any public reason why Musk was involved with either show, it is clear that Sheldon isn’t a younger version of him for a few factual reasons. While Musk’s IQ is thought to be between 155-160, Sheldon’s was 187 from the age of nine. Sheldon is known for being a physics scientist — eventually winning the Nobel prize for discovering super asymmetry — but Musk isn’t, considered as more of an engineer despite interests in space, physics, and computer science.

In ‘A Patch, a Modem, and a Zantac,’ Sheldon convinces the Coopers to take him to a NASA base in order to prove a theory wrong that a representative had shown them in class. The NASA rep applauds Sheldon’s science but tells him it is decades ahead of its time, with no available technology to implement his thinking. Years later while working on SpaceX, Musk is seen reading Sheldon’s childhood diary with his NASA workings in it after it’s proved that Sheldon’s theory worked in practice.

Fast forward to The Big Bang Theory — though this came years before Musk’s Young Sheldon cameo — and he can be seen in the Season 9 episode ‘The Platonic Permutation.’ Musk is in fact Howard’s hero rather than Sheldon’s, who he meets while serving a homeless Thanksgiving dinner.

Sheldon also mentions Musk in the Season 10 episode ‘The Military Miniaturization’, referencing the theory that our reality could all be part of a video game played by aliens.

Is Young Sheldon based on a true story?

No. Young Sheldon is not a true story, instead being a work of fiction following on from the 2007-2019 comedy series The Big Bang Theory.

The show follows Sheldon Cooper’s family life in Texas before his move to Caltech at the age of 14, but the choice to follow a spinoff of Sheldon’s younger years was actually inspired by Jim Parsons‘ real family, according to executive producer Chuck Lorre.

He told The Hollywood Reporter in 2022: “The beginning was a phone call from Jim Parsons, who sent me a video of his 10-year-old nephew in Texas who is a prodigy — brilliant, extraordinary, off the hook, crazy smart kid. Jim asked, ‘Is there anything we can do with this?’ I said, ‘Well, if we wanted to do a show about a young man who is brilliant — a comedy — we have that built into our show. That’s the backstory of Sheldon Cooper.'”

Is Young Sheldon neurodivergent?

No, there is no official diagnosis for Sheldon, meaning he isn’t on the autism spectrum — though he can exhibit similar behavior.

The original series came under fire from fans for how previous neurodivergent storylines were handled, despite Sheldon never receiving an official diagnosis.

In response, TBBT actress Mayim Bialik — who played Amy Cooper — explained [via Radio Times] “All of our characters are in theory on the neuropsychiatric spectrum, I would say. Sheldon often gets talked about in terms of Asperger’s or OCD. He has a thing with germs, he has a thing with numbers, he’s got a lot of that precision that we see in OCD.

“There’s a lot of interesting features to all of our characters that make them technically unconventional socially.”

How to watch Young Sheldon

Young Sheldon Season 7 is currently available to watch on Thursdays at 8pm ET / 5pm PT on CBS. Episodes will also be on Paramount Plus a day after their release.

In addition, The first six seasons of Young Sheldon are currently available to stream on Max and Netflix. For UK viewers, Season 6 will be added to Netflix on June 1, 2024.

A Netflix release date for Season 7 has yet to be revealed.

While you wait for the next episode, you can catch up with our other Sheldon content, like our Season 7 theories, filming locations, how to watch Season 7 outside the US, and how to watch Young Sheldon on streaming.

You can also check out all the best new TV shows coming out this month.

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