There’s another dark narrative being pushed about Elon Musk and Tesla.
As someone who has actually sat down with Elon Musk in an interview earlier this year, I wanted to share my thoughts.
There have been some wildfire-like stories floating around, ranging from the White House trying to stop Elon Musk from buying Twitter to worries that he and Tesla are “national security threats.”
Bloomberg reported that President Biden’s administration was deciding whether or not to subject some of Elon’s ventures to national security reviews. This includes his purchase of Twitter.
However, The Guardian reported that the White House denied this claim. Spokesperson Adrienne Watson said: “We don’t know of any such discussions.”
At the time of this writing, The Guardian is the only one I’ve seen so far reporting this.
The narrative is twisting and turning into a tortured monster ravenous for your clicks. The idea that Tesla could also be a threat to national security is a bit of a stretch — one of those that result in pulled muscles.
The Washington Post, which is owned by Jeff Bezos, who owns Amazon and SpaceX competitor, Blue Origin, put forth this idea based on the various technologies that Tesla is developing, specifically autonomous vehicles and artificial intelligence. By bringing up DARPA as a comparison to Tesla, but not mentioning Waymo, Google, or other tech giants developing similar technologies, the narrative has been painted.
The article states:
“Autonomous vehicles and AI go hand in hand and have long been of interest to strategic planners around the world. The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, or DARPA, began work on unmanned ground vehicles in the 1980s.”
Then there are the arguments that Tesla has a large factory in China. Tesla may have a large factory in Shanghai, China, but is by no means the only American company with a presence in China. If Tesla is a threat to national security, then so are Apple, Amazon, Meta, and any other American company with a presence in China.
And I seriously doubt these companies, including Tesla, are actual threats to our nation’s security. As for Russia, the claim that Elon Musk spoke with Putin about Ukraine was debunked by Elon Musk himself. Yet many seem to cling to this lie as if it were true.
How quickly it is forgotten that when Russia’s former space chief Dmitry Rogozin, threatened to let the International Space Station crash to earth, asking who would protect it, Elon Musk answered that SpaceX would.
Yet so many have casually accused him of being a Putin loyalist despite SpaceX’s over $80 million contributions toward Ukraine’s defense. And Starlink is costing SpaceX $20 million monthly.
Russia is also trying to destroy Starlink. Yet no one is talking about this. Starlink is the only communications system that is working in Ukraine, and Russia is actively trying to kill it.
For someone who supposedly is a ‘threat to the US national security,’ it’s strange that this person’s company is investing massive resources in Ukraine’s defense, especially when the US is sending billions in aid to Ukraine.
During my interview with Elon Musk over the summer, he spoke passionately about humanity and civilization. Something Elon said during our interview echoed inside my head during these tensions and headlines about world war three:
“The arc of civilizations — the various sort of civilizations that have been on earth have not had a continuous upper trajectory. They rose, they peaked, and they fell.”
“The ancient Sumerians are no longer. The ancient Egyptians no longer. The Romans. So there’s many civilizations that have risen and fallen. The Mayans — and they had really quite an incredible network of cities and now they are mostly just under jungle and earth.”
Humanity almost destroyed itself during World Wars 1 and 2. And as Elon has said before, civilizations have risen and fallen. And in many cases, human greed has been at the forefront of the downfall of many civilizations.
Following this, Elon’s point below is very crucial and we need to, as a species, understand this.
“I think people have lived at a period of time where civilization from our technology standpoint has been increasing, and so they just naturally assume that’s just how it is. It’ll just always increase.”
“Essentially, what I’m trying to say is that we should approach making life multi-planetary with a sense of urgency and do so while we can. This is the first time that the window of opportunity has been open for life to become multi-planetary, and that window may be open for a long time or a short time.”
Elon’s call for peace and his opinions on the situation with Ukraine and Russia are very painful for the polarized groups of people affected by them and unfortunately, we live in a time where mainstream media is taking things out of context to push narratives.
The obvious solution to end this war is if Russia completely backs off of Ukraine but I don’t think this will happen simply because Putin’s ego is too big. And he doesn’t care about his own people.
“How to break arm” became a top Google trend in Russia as Russians were being faced with conscription. This should tell you something about both Putin and Russian civilians. Civilians don’t want this war. And this was what Elon Musk was concerned about when he pointed out that if this continues, there would be death on both sides, especially if nuclear weapons were involved.
I don’t believe the twisted half-truths, outright lies, and misinformation being spread about Elon Musk. He and SpaceX have poured millions into aiding Ukraine.
I also don’t think Elon Musk is a threat to our national security at all. Yet the narratives are not only being pushed but there is no one being held accountable for pushing them once proven to be false.
The idea of a company making EVs, solar panels, and battery storage being a threat to national security is silly and pure fearmongering.
Perhaps we should be more worried about those who benefit from the war itself. And perhaps we should be concerned about the high inflation rates *cough* corporate price gouging *cough* and the fact that Americans are struggling to get by.
