May 19, 2022

"Driving a Tesla is suddenly like one of those yahoos parading with a Trump flag on his pickup. Never Trump, never Tesla for this voter/consumer."

That's the top-rated comment at "Elon Musk still has to answer to others" by Sebastian Mallaby (WaPo).

What did Musk do to deserve that? Here's Mallaby (I've added boldface):

Since striking a deal to buy Twitter, Elon Musk has tweeted a poop emoji at its chief executive; incited Twitter attacks, some racist, against an Indian American senior official at the company; and behaved as though a man of his heroic vision should be allowed to brush aside the law. Whether the Twitter deal is consummated, more juvenile shock tactics — standard behavior from Musk — are likely.... 

Musk has founded multiple disruptive companies.... But when his behavior becomes too erratic, legal and institutional forces combine to box him in.... When he behaved too imperiously as chief executive of PayPal, his lieutenants ejected him, and Thiel got his job. When Musk invented a story about taking Tesla private, the Securities and Exchange Commission sued him for fraud and forced him to accept a multimillion-dollar fine. Tesla has faced lawsuits over allegations of sexual and racial harassment. 

No matter how rich he is, Musk operates within a system that tries to hold him to account. Today, Musk’s clownish antics are generating pushback....

85 comments:

gilbar said...

I'm Sure Not ready (or Rich Enough) to get a Tesla...
BUT! Having a Trump2024 bumper sticker on it Would Be Great!

Beasts of England said...

It must suck to get whiplash from virtue signaling!!

TreeJoe said...

In 20 years Musk....

- Drove the advancement of all electric vehicles and a nationwide recharging system far, far in advance of anything government or major manufacturers pursued.
- Launched a global satellite system that has capabilities in excess of any country's space program to quickly launch and scale a satellite communication system.
- More broadly, developed a space program that is delivering more successes at lower costs than any government program ever before.
....The list goes on.

I don't own a Tesla and I'm generally not a lover of Musk on a personal level, but man, I can't sit here and point to another human of this era who has advanced humanity more in ways that will ultimately enrich and enhance humanity. There probably is one I just can't think of right now.

I still think his offer to buy twitter was an external poison pill that was aimed at fixing or destroying twitters existing culture and ways, as well as sending a warning shot across the bow of other platforms.

gilbar said...

like one of those yahoos parading with a Trump flag on his pickup.

remember!
to a Leftist, you're Not someone with different views
to a Leftist, you're Not someone with opposing views
to a Leftist, you're Not someone with the Wrong views
you're a Less Than Human yahoo, that DOES NOT DESERVE TO BREATH; let alone Vote

stunned said...

https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1526997132858822658

Quaestor said...

That consumer/voter probably has no choice regarding whether to own a Tesla or whether he'll get President Trump again. Aesop had a fable to cover this situation.

Lem the artificially intelligent said...

They are just pissed that Musk came up with a way to make people feel good while looking good. If you care about the planet you’re not supposed to look good doing it. Musk beat them at their game.

Rollo said...

People like eccentric millionaires. They are more entertaining than the other kinds. Their performances may be narcissistic in origin, buy the show is their way of giving back. Musk seems less dangerous than Gates or Soros or Buffett. He's as weird as Jobs was, but less scarily single-minded.

Rt41Rebel said...

Perhaps Musk's greater feat is destroying the green agenda.

zipity said...


Everyone knew that when Elon went off the Liberal/Democrat reservation, it was only a matter of time before the Lamestream Media© and Deep State would train their weapons on him.

Gotta make an example of him. Defy the Left-wing agenda at your own peril.

Misinforminimalism said...

Looking forward to putting a double-mount gun rack on the rear window of my Cybertruck. Molon labe, climatistas!

The only frustrating thing about Musk taking over Twitter is that it will inevitably distract him from getting production going on Cybertruck. Otherwise it's pure gold.

mezzrow said...

As predicted, right on schedule. Thank you for playing, Mr. Mallaby.

jaydub said...

Musk Derangement Syndrome.

Gdaddy said...

Elon tweeted he is going to vote Republican. 'Nuff said!

Wa St Blogger said...

“Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds. The mediocre mind is incapable of understanding the man who refuses to bow blindly to conventional prejudices and chooses instead to express his opinions courageously and honestly.”

-Albert Einstein.

They only care because Musk not showing sufficient obeisance to the woke mob. And of course if you criticize anyone who is not cis-gendered male, you are guilty of the unpardonable sin.

This post demands a civility BS tag because his only real sin is not being civil enough. ( (I know, that's not what it is used for.)

A poop emoji? heaven forfend we have to endure poop emojis. Maybe they can replace musk with a senile octogenarian at the helm of Twitter so that there will be no more poop emojis.

n.n said...

First, they came for the babies, and they cheered with gay aplomb. Then the Green blight spread through environmental arbitrage, and they cheered, then they jeered. The Pro-Choice "ethical" religion is a many selective, opportunistic, politically congruent ("=") thing.

typingtalker said...

"Whether the Twitter deal is consummated, more juvenile shock tactics — standard behavior from Musk — are likely.... "

Works for him.

David-2 said...

The "poop" emoji exists. It didn't just appear on everyone's computers and phones due to some fluctuations in the ether. Serious people submitted it for consideration to a committee composed of other serious people involved in the creation/improvement/maintenance of the world-wide Unicode standard. Other serious people took the resulting report seriously and created little tiny pieces of artwork that represent the concept and yet other serious people programmed software frameworks and so on to provide the capability, to users of computers and phones, to send the "poop" emoji to each other.

Lots of people use it, including many (assumed) "serious" blue-check journalists on Twitter.

But Musk shouldn't be allowed to use it, because ... ??

Leftists have no sense of humor.

David-2 said...

The "poop" emoji exists. It didn't just appear on everyone's computers and phones due to some fluctuations in the ether. Serious people submitted it for consideration to a committee composed of other serious people involved in the creation/improvement/maintenance of the world-wide Unicode standard. Other serious people took the resulting report seriously and created little tiny pieces of artwork that represent the concept and yet other serious people programmed software frameworks and so on to provide the capability, to users of computers and phones, to send the "poop" emoji to each other.

Lots of people use it, including many (assumed) "serious" blue-check journalists on Twitter.

But Musk shouldn't be allowed to use it, because ... ??

Leftists have no sense of humor.

typingtalker said...

"Whether the Twitter deal is consummated, more juvenile shock tactics — standard behavior from Musk — are likely.... "

Works for him.

MikeR said...

"incited Twitter attacks, some racist, against an Indian American senior official at the company" Whoa. Correct description: Musk criticized them.
You just criticized Musk. Do you accept the description that you "incited Twitter attacks" against him? Because he will get some in response.
This kind of attempt to suppress criticism is exactly why Twitter can no longer be allowed to run around on their own. These people are scary and literally insane.

Joe Biden, America's Putin said...

The real clown show is WaPoo.

Will I be arrested for saying as such?

cassandra lite said...

Dispatch from the creep state.

Mavericks now exist solely in literature and movies, though probably not much longer.

MikeR said...

Tesla: One of the world's main attempts to decrease carbon emissions. Musk thinks, somewhere around 10% total. Because whatever else you do to convert power to renewables or nuclear, motor vehicles are going to need to convert away from fossil fuels. And no one was doing that but Tesla. Tesla made it a serious market, and is continuing to ramp up. They made it happen.
Anyone who really cares about carbon emissions has to love Tesla. Anyone who is using carbon emissions as virtue signaling, no.

realestateacct said...

Howard Roark not available for comment. May be vacationing at the Galt resort.

MikeR said...

"Facebook, now Meta, is everyone’s favorite example of Big Tech run amok. But founder Mark Zuckerberg has been hauled before Congress to answer for his company’s behavior. He has been forced to take content moderation more seriously and has empowered a tribunal of worthies to second-guess his decisions." Wow. Talk about making tech be more responsible: We'll force it to censor for us.
I don't know if the author knows or cares that he is talking about a First Amendment violation.

Kevin said...

What did Musk do to deserve that?

Saying he was planning to vote Republican, obvi.

rhhardin said...

The shock is not from saying something false but from saying something that everybody has agreed not to say. The agreement has broken down and who knows what somebody will be saying next. Some other truth.

PM said...

Where I live, driving a Tesla is a sign you have money, care about the environment and want to atone for the impact of your beach and mountain houses & your garden and pool water-usage. That said, I've never seen an assembly-line American car painted more beautifully than a Tesla. Now, what's a "Trump flag"? That thing with the stripes and stars?

jim5301 said...

This is one of those rare times in history where the richest person in the world deserves to be the richest person in the world. Paypal, SpaceX, Tesla, Neuralink, etc.

A great force for the advancement of mankind (esp. if you believe climate change is a real thing and that there is a not-insignificant chance we will destroy Earth by the end of the century.)

And I'm supposed to be upset over a poop emoji?

Earnest Prole said...

You're willing to sacrifice Mother Earth Herself on the bonfire of your Trump/Musk hatred?

Dave Begley said...

"incited Twitter attacks, some racist, against an Indian American senior official at the company"

That would be the Chief Censorship Officer and Lawyer who made $16m last year and enabled Biden's victory.

The latest payback by the Left is a decision that Tesla - the EV company - is not Green enough to be in the ESG index.

The Left is insane.

Old and slow said...

I just spent a few minutes reading the comments at the Post. Wow! The hatred is off the charts. These are by and large decent and well educated people who are commenting. They are also utterly deranged, and if they were aware of my political views would automatically despise me for them. So much vitriol and derision in this country. This cannot end well.

Iman said...

My thoughts transition from “who are these people?” to “FUCK THESE PEOPLE!”

effinayright said...

"I don't own a Tesla and I'm generally not a lover of Musk on a personal level, but man, I can't sit here and point to another human of this era who has advanced humanity more in ways that will ultimately enrich and enhance humanity. There probably is one I just can't think of right now."
***********

Norman Borlaug.

Tim Berners Lee.

donald said...

I think it's cool that they were able to go back in time and get a buncha bullshit Ellsworth Toohey.

Bruce Hayden said...

Talking to a neighbor a couple days ago. He commented on the G19 I was carrying for the coyotes in the open space south of us (apparently owned by the City of Phoenix, which means that it isn’t going to be developed anytime soon). PHX PD has told me that I can shoot the coyotes if they endanger either me, or more realistically, the mini-dog I take for walks there (I walk her there so I don’t have to pick up her shit, like I do in the subdivision). I commented that the gun wasn’t popular with the Tesla drivers in the community. We both laughed. Apparently, I am the guy who walks around with a gun (and small dog to protect - but dogs are ubiquitous, while open carry is very rare).

We seem to have moved into Tesla haven. In 4 houses in a row on the block around us, there are 4 Teslas (Teslae?) - ours is the house without. Family just east of us has two, and when they were out parked on the street a couple weeks ago, I wondered if the two in the garage had been breeding. The moral is not to put two of them together in the garage over night. Another house has double Teslae on the way out of the subdivision. Showing off, I think, because they are invariably parked on the driveway, and not in the garage.

In our neighborhood, the Tesla owners seem to be 30-40 year old couples with a very young kid or (at most) two. Stereotyping? Sure. But my bet is that every one really voted for FJB, as contrasted to the better than half million fraudulent votes he got here in AZ. Even in N Scottsdale, Teslae aren’t really that common. But around here, in this subdivision? Oh, yeh. Serious virtue signaling. The funny thing is that we are just a mile west of the Penske N Scottsdale autoplex, selling all of the popular premium foreign car brands - but not Teslae.

And that is where I need to go now - to that open space with that little dog.

Mike Sylwester said...

Democracy Dies in Darkness!

mikee said...

I build new residential homes in Austin. I've run a 50 Amp line to the garage for a fast car charger in every home built for sale since 2020. Thanks, Elon.

So far, I have 0% electric car ownership by home purchasers. Nobody has put in a car charger. I cover the capped wires, open the labeled breaker at the circuit board, and the outlet gets a blank cover labeled "50 AMP". Someone will install a car charger eventually. Or just keep using free chargers at work....

And until then, I wait with bated breath for the report from a home buyer about uncovering that blank electrical wiring in the garage, and the sparks that flew when they messed with it.

farmgirl said...

So tolerant, the Left.
So holier than thou…
Meeting a Tesla on the roads where I live is like seeing a unicorn. It does happen.

robother said...

Musk said he voted Democrat "because they were the nice" party. Now, he says he realizes that the Democrats are the party of divisiveness and hatred. If anyone expected the Democrats to love bomb Musk in an effort to prove they are still the nice guys, Mallaby is here to disabuse them.

Jupiter said...

So what do you suppose the voter/consumer has done with his suddenly pickup-like Tesla?

And BTW, kudos to this paragon for being able to vote and consume at the same time. Western Civilization has reached its pinnacle in this citizen. I'm afraid it's all downhill from here.

JRoberts said...

Yeah, but can you get a Tesla to "roll coal" while sporting a Trump bumper sticker?

Vance said...

Has Musk done more than Jobs yet?

Jobs revolutionized 4 or 5 industries: personal computing with GUI and friendlyer than the command line. Movies with Pixar. Music with the iPod and iTunes (actually getting music streaming to work rather than piracy). Phones with the iPhone, and then he invented the iPad (Star Trek tricorder in real life!). Jobs created the worlds most profitable company. And he was half insane the whole time.

Musk has revolutionized space and internet and driving cars. He is taking on the left on free speech right now.

I still give the nod to Jobs, but Musk is gaining fast. Jobs revolutionized personal computing and brought it to the masses with the GUI and iPhone; Musk's biggest impact might be standing for freedom.

wildswan said...

Elon Musk has done more than any else to make electric cars possible, Besides Tesla he has developed a working battery. You can't really get an electric car without giving him some money. So how does one weight the pros and cons of the choice: pollute the atmosphere by staying with a gas car or accept without protest Twitter pollution by free speech?

farmgirl said...

Rh-
Word.

Wa💩 hehe

retail lawyer said...

Wealthy people have to walk through minefields of possible mistakes, misinterpretations of their statements, and actions subject to spinning by opponents . . especially if they earned their money. See Donald Trump. Much cleaner to be in "public service".

Stan Smith said...

Teslas are Galt Carts.

Michael K said...



gilbar said...

I'm Sure Not ready (or Rich Enough) to get a Tesla...
BUT! Having a Trump2024 bumper sticker on it Would Be Great!


The only Trump bumper sticker I saw in LA in 2016 was on a Tesla. It was like wearing a garlic clove around your neck to keep the vampires away.

Oh Yea said...

"Elon Musk still has to answer to others" by Sebastian Mallaby (WaPo)."

Jeff Bezos approves this message

Howard said...

I'm glad you people like Elon now that Fox says it's Okay. He's no longer a government contract and tax break grifter in your eyes. That's progress, bravo.

Jupiter said...

"Anyone who really cares about carbon emissions has to love Tesla. Anyone who is using carbon emissions as virtue signaling, no."

Well, you've got that backwards. Electric vehicles don't actually create any new energy sources, they just make less-efficient use of existing ones. But they are great for virtue-signaling, and snorkeling up the subsidies our idiot government leaves lying around in its wake.

Fortunately, there is no good reason to care about carbon emissions, so Go, Elon, Go!

Maddad said...

"incited Twitter attacks, some racist, against an Indian American senior official at the company"

Prove it. Nothing Musk said about or to that guy on Twitter was racist. Nothing he said "incited" anyone.

wendybar said...

Somebody better let AOC know!! She bought a Tesla instead of paying her student loans that she now wants YOU to pay for.

Steven said...

I don't know if he's doing this for the cynical reason I am about to propose, but appealing to the Right could turn out to be a good strategy for Musk. The Red States are the ones most likely to be resistant to building the infrastructure to support electric cars. In the densely populated Blue States, electric cars make more sense - people don't need to drive all that far and they can either charge them at home, or there are natural places in cities to put charging stations. The Red States, though, are large and sparsely populated. Electric cars could be inconvenient there, and with a sort of anti-environmentalist feeling, there would be skepticism to building charging stations and other infrastructure.

By being on the Red Team, Musk has dramatically expanded the Tesla customer base and greatly improved the political viability of building electric car infrastructure.

Jason said...

Apparently, Musk took down the "Workers of the World, Unite" poster in the window of his produce mart.

Rusty said...

Can Of Cheese for Hunter said...
"The real clown show is WaPoo.

Will I be arrested for saying as such?"
No. Bezos doesn't have the balls. Like Howard with money. It(wait for it) IS the nations High School Newspaper of Record and as such isn't to be taken seriously except by those with a high school need to popular.
Mike R. @ 12:14
Let's not forget 0-60 in like 2 seconds. Or swapping out the electric motors for an LS small block. Check out, "Rich Rebuilds" They're putting a turbo Cummins 4 cyl. in a Tesla. Why? Because they can.

John henry said...

Why is this presstitute allowed to criticize an African American?

Isn't that racist?

John LGKTQ Henry

gahrie said...

Has Musk done more than Jobs yet?

...

Musk has revolutionized space and internet and driving cars. He is taking on the left on free speech right now.


Musk created online want ads for newspapers, helped create paypal changing banking and online shopping, he's working with artificial intelligence, updated tunnel boring, updated solar power, revolutionized electricity storage, built and launched a satellite constellation to provide cheap, fast worldwide internet coverage.

walter said...

Dear Howie,
It's a free speech thing.
You wouldn't understand.
Semper fud!

realestateacct said...

While the people I know with who own a Tesla are all Democrats, I'm quite sure that they like their cars better than they like their Democratic Congressman.

gilbar said...

Norman Borlaug*
???

Are you Crazy?
All That guy did, was enable about a BILLION people to have babies (by not having them starve to death)
Oh Great! More Population! Population that will have MORE babies (by not having to starve to death)
And! EVERY ONE of those people (PLUS Their kids) Is Going To Die (mostly through old age)
HOW, are we EVER, going to reduce population; if BILLIONS of people aren't Starving To DEATH??

Norman Borlaug* Norman's from Cresco, a about 30 miles north of me.. So i get to tease him: You DON'T

LilyBart said...

It must suck to get whiplash from virtue signaling!!

Its definitely more about the signaling that the virtue.

LilyBart said...


The left politicizes EVERYTHING. So tedious. So divisive.

Quaestor said...

Oh Yea writes, "'Elon Musk still has to answer to others" by Sebastian Mallaby (WaPo).' Jeff Bezos approves this message."

Yesterday morning, Elon's SpaceX launched another 53 StarLink satellites into orbit. The Falcon 9 rocket successfully landed on the SpaceX drone ship A Shortfall of Gravitas (Named in honor of Resident Biden, no doubt.) The mission wasn't perfect, the launch was delayed 39 minutes.

Meanwhile, feckless billionaire Jeff Bezos, though able to summon White House interference with SpaceX's Starship testing program with a phone call, not to Biden, who thinks Blue Origin is an ice cream flavor, but to Ron Klain, had to scrub his New Sheppard billionaire's amusement park ride.

All anti-Musk NYT articles derive from fear.

All anti-Musk WaPo articles derive from jealousy.

Michael K said...


Blogger Howard said...

I'm glad you people like Elon now that Fox says it's Okay. He's no longer a government contract and tax break grifter in your eyes. That's progress, bravo.


Howard, how can you stand reading the opinions of people from flyover country? Musk has made billions from you green wienies and your goofy windmills. What he also done is build a space program in a few years that shows how corrupt and incompetent NASA has become. Typical of all bureaucracies, NASA has become a poster child for Democrat incompetence. The people running the US government now are all about theory (Marxist theory) and have no experience making a large enterprise run.

pious agnostic said...

They really do hate mean tweets, don't they?

Gahrie said...

I'm glad you people like Elon now that Fox says it's Okay. He's no longer a government contract and tax break grifter in your eyes. That's progress, bravo.

I have never understood this attack on Elon. Every government, contract he has taken, every one, he has either done something no one else could do, or done something better and cheaper than anyone else could.

Every government loan he has received he has repaid, with interest. He has never lobbied for tax breaks or incentives, unlike his competitors. He did take advantage of incentives and tax breaks created by various governments in order to encourage someone to do exactly what Elon did.

The grifters are the legacy auto companies and legacy aerospace companies sucking on the government teat and consistently failing.

iowan2 said...

Maybe someone covered the context of the poop emoji.
It was a response some snarky comment.
It was the perfect response, and more than the instigator deserved.

MadTownGuy said...

Quaestor said...

"All anti-Musk NYT articles derive from fear.

All anti-Musk WaPo articles derive from jealousy.
"

You left out bigotry. Of course, there's a connection between all of them.

Leland said...

The radical left has always hated Tesla. Tesla showed that an electric car didn't have to be a miserable experience. Prior to Tesla, you had Prius, Leafs, Volts that were tiny cars with less than 200 mile range, few amenities, and slow acceleration. Tesla could take you over 200 miles comfortably, blow the doors off supercars and muscle cars alike, and gave you an infotainment system that bested most other vehicles on the road. Only "the rich" could afford it, but it still took market share from its pathetic e-competitors. No longer was Prius the substitute brand name for any electric vehicle, the way Coke may be used for various soda pop drinks. And the lefties that purchased a Prius to virtue signal were pissed.

The insult to injury was Musk never cared about Tesla to save the environment. He came up with Tesla to fund his battery research for his more important mission of getting to Mars. And the real hate, as Michael K note as 6:19pm is Musk succeeded in ways NASA failed. Biden and AOC talk about a "moonshot" to save the climate, but neither have done as much to lower carbon emissions as Musk, who only cares about a Mars shot. Correction, neither have they or the various government agencies they lead or fund have done as much. And that means Social Marxism isn't as efficient as free markets. The revolution can't tolerate Musk making that so obvious.

Menahem Globus said...

I'll be the guy with the 'My other car is a Hemicuda' bumper sticker on my Cybertruck.

MikeR said...

@Leland "The insult to injury was Musk never cared about Tesla to save the environment." He has certainly said otherwise. He thinks global warming is an important problem, and thinks the Tesla puts a big dent in it.

MikeR said...

I do think that it's surprising that Musk is coming out as a Republican. I thought he was focused on getting to Mars and such. This seems like a bad way to do it. Who needs so many enemies?

Gahrie said...

I do think that it's surprising that Musk is coming out as a Republican. I thought he was focused on getting to Mars and such. This seems like a bad way to do it. Who needs so many enemies?

It's been clear for some time that the Biden administration and Democrat Party were hostile to Musk. They are already using the government bureaucracy to impede Musk. they hate tesla because it's not unionized, and they hate SpaceX because it makes NASA look stupid.

John henry said...

Since the 1920s of earlier, scores of car companies have failed until we are left with Ford, gm, Chrysler (now Fiat) . Lots of really great names :packard, piece-arrow, Studebaker, Nash, Crosley and more.

Since wwii there have been a couple dozen ne companies founded that make a few dozen to a few thousand cars and go toes up.

It is pretty much an impossible business to get into for a lot of different reasons. Nobody has been able to do it successfully.

Tesla's made several million cars to date and is growing. 300m just in Q1-22.

That's not nothing.

John LGKTQ Henry

Joe Smith said...

'He's no longer a government contract and tax break grifter in your eyes.'

Part of his wealth came from him taking advantage of government tax incentives.

He didn't write the laws; he legally took advantage of them.

That makes him smart. Anybody could have done the same and few did.

Try again.

wendybar said...

PM said...
Now, what's a "Trump flag"? That thing with the stripes and stars?

5/19/22, 12:39 PM

Yes. The one the left likes to kneel on or like Bill Ayers on the cover of Chicago Magazine the month before 9/11, step all over.

Leland said...

@MikeR He has certainly said otherwise. He thinks global warming is an important problem, and thinks the Tesla puts a big dent in it.

The Left disagrees.

mezzrow said...

*next day*

Here's the sexual harassment accusation. Right on schedule.

https://news.yahoo.com/spacex-flight-attendant-said-elon-221749528.html

What a bad guy. We'll show him who's boss. How dare he.

Leland said...

@MikeR, but you are right that Musk cares.

TrespassersW said...

It's imperfect, like all analogies, but Musk is Harrison Bergeron. His detractors wish they were Diana Moon Glampers.

Greg The Class Traitor said...

MikeR said...
I do think that it's surprising that Musk is coming out as a Republican. I thought he was focused on getting to Mars and such. This seems like a bad way to do it. Who needs so many enemies?

He's for free speech, and the Left hates that, and therefore hates him.

He's already got the enemies. Now he's looking for some friends

NotWhoIUsedtoBe said...

He can't afford a Tesla.

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