OPINION: Why Does Elon Musk Get So Much Hate?
By Dawson Beard, Skyline Desk Chief
ALPINE - I was driving by Skelton’s Runway on my way to campus the other day when I noticed new Tesla charging stations had been installed in the area. This got me thinking about the genius of Elon Musk and how much I appreciate all the good he has done for the future of automobiles, among other things. However, it also got me thinking about how not everyone feels the same way I do about Elon Musk, not by a longshot.
Tesla is one of the biggest players in the Democrat pipe dream that is a clean-energy future as the largest electric vehicle manufacturer in the country. One would think that Elon Musk would be a hero on the left for advancing their environmental agenda, yet, folks on the left love to give him hate on a daily basis.
Whether it be President Biden conveniently leaving Tesla out of a speech praising all of the car companies that had made large investments in EV manufacturing, people deleting their Twitter accounts following his acquisition or general public assault on his character, Elon Musk receives a ton of hate from all angles.
What is the reason for this hate? I’ll tell you.
He is a billionaire who refuses to bow down to the public and speaks his mind regardless of the backlash he may receive.
Being a billionaire in today’s political landscape instantly puts a target on your back. Thanks to the propaganda that has been perpetuated by politicians like Independent Sen. Bernie Sanders and Democrat Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, millionaires and billionaires are viewed as greedy, schemy individuals who only serve to oppress the less fortunate, despite most of these wealthy individuals giving millions to charity each year.
Other billionaires like Tom Steyer, Michael Bloomberg and Bill Gates, however, are given a pass on their socially unfavorable economic status. Why? Because they can be controlled.
These days, if you are a public figure, you are expected to believe a certain way or keep your mouth shut. If you do not conform to the mainstream principles of the woke agenda, you better just be quiet, lest you want to be the latest victim of cancel culture. Figures like Steyer, Bloomberg and Gates have had no problem falling in line.
Now, I acknowledge that Elon Musk says stupid stuff from time to time. Recently, he referred to an X user’s tweet as “the actual truth” when the user tweeted that Jewish people "have been pushing the exact kind of dialectical hatred against whites that they claim to want people to stop using against them." Elon’s response was seen by many as antisemitic, causing major backlash against the social media mogul.
While this backlash is justified, in my opinion, this public backlash only serves to, once again, expose the selective outrage of the left. Democrats didn’t bat an eyelash when Joe Biden told African Americans, “You ain’t black,” if they didn’t vote for him; they weren’t calling for Joe Biden to drop out of the 2020 presidential race when he told a group of African American and Hispanic journalists that “Unlike the African American community, with notable exceptions, the Latino community is an incredibly diverse community with incredibly different attitudes about different things,” implying that he believes that all black people think the same. I hope the irony isn’t lost on anyone.
But this is where Elon Musk gets himself into hot water. He will say anything he wants to say and do anything he wants to do. If he wants to spend $44 billion on Twitter and change its name to X, he’s going to do it; if he wants to say “Go f*** yourself” to advertisers who threaten an X advertising boycott, he’s going to say it. This is the biggest reason people on the left hate Elon Musk so much - they can’t control him.
The left is so used to prominent public figures conforming to their ideals that as soon as an insurgent free-thinker comes around and challenges their control of the social landscape, that person is a threat that needs to be eliminated. Just ask Donald Trump.