Elon Musk is someone I admire and have a lot of respect for. Lately, he has been making the news for reasons that would have the typical left-supporting American worried.
The average American on both sides of the political spectrum, however, is unaware of these tactics being used to divide. And those on the left are being taught that free speech is a right-wing thing and that Elon is now right-wing because he values free speech.
Elon Musk and the Left
Please note that when I say left, I am referring to the platform itself and not individuals.
Elon Musk was, and I still believe, one of the left’s most vocal allies in solving climate change. However, the left has seemed to move on from wanting to solve climate change to a much darker path.
Social justice warriors were once seen as a good thing. People advocated for those whose voices are oppressed, discriminated against, or outright suppressed. As someone who once identified as a left-leaning liberal, I often thought of the left as the good side and the right as the bad. Why?
Well, on the right you have racists, people who hate women and want to regulate my body. This is how I perceived those on the right. And many left-leaning Americans still do today. What woke me up from this madness was witnessing how the mainstream media started vilifying Elon Musk and how many left-leaning Americans are falling for it. Let me share what I’ve seen with my own eyes.
2018.
In 2018, I was going through my own problems and found Elon Musk and the Tesla community. I won’t go into details about that but once I started interacting with Elon Musk on Twitter, I started noticing something else.
I was suddenly being bullied online by seemingly random accounts who hated Elon Musk. The majority of those tweets came from anonymous trolls who identified themselves as ‘$tslaq.’ I didn’t know at the time what that meant and I didn’t know anything about the Tesla stock. I wasn't even writing for CleanTechnica at the time.
I was just an artist trying to get by and rebuild my life after going through something traumatic. And Elon Musk shared an open letter I’d written him on my jewelry blog which led to sales that funded me getting to a safe place.
Members of the Tesla community took me under their wing and educated me about the stock and the FUD campaign against Elon Musk and Tesla. FUD= fear, uncertainty, and doubt.
Accounts that have been cited as “news sources” have targeted and bullied me and many others in the Tesla community on Twitter. All because we interacted with Elon Musk on Twitter. The bullying hasn’t stopped, but I just ignore it now.
I began to see the media in a different light. Then I became a journalist for CleanTechnica. And the attacks kept coming because I was writing about Tesla and none of my articles were negative. This FUD campaign, you see, is all about money.
Tesla was at the center of a massive short and distort campaign in 2018. This was a time when it almost went bankrupt. And this, I noticed, was when the media took a bit more of an unrealistically negative viewpoint toward Tesla and Elon Musk.
When Elon Musk spoke out against how the media was mistreating him, the attacks intensified and are still just as intense to this very day.
Those seemingly random accounts that bullied me? Well, they targeted anyone who tweeted to Elon Musk, about Tesla and especially anything positive about Elon or Tesla. I was even ridiculed by verified accounts and told to go OD. I have an entire Google drive file filled with screenshots of harassment.
“Well, Elon Shouldn’t Have (fill in the blank)”
There is a lot Elon Musk has said and done on Twitter that many would agree wasn’t the right move. However, what isn’t taken into account is that Elon was reacting. The media, in general, didn’t address the reasons why Elon said or took an action.
Exhibit A: The Pedo Comment.
I get told that Elon calling a random guy a pedo is proof that Elon is a bad person. No, and I agree that calling people a pedo isn’t a good move, but no one talked about the fact that Unsworth started it when he said Elon Musk, “Elon Musk can stick his submarine where it hurts.”
Elon was also mocked and ridiculed for offering to help with the Thai cave rescue despite the fact that he was asked to. Elon Musk was asked to help and he did so and was brutally mocked by the media.
Exhibit B: Elon Musk Calling Senator Warren Senator Karen
Again, I don’t agree with calling people names as there are better ways to handle things, but Elon Musk is human, not perfect. We all do things that are not 100% good or right. However, he didn’t just wake up one day and said, “I’m gonna bully Senator Warren.”
He was reacting to her attacks on him. She, along with several other left-wing politicians, have been attacking Elon Musk with such a ferocity that you would think he’s running for political office.
Senator Warren went as far as paying for Facebook ads that literally lied about Elon Musk.
Vilifying Elon Musk
One thing I’ve been seeing all over Twitter, Facebook, and even TikTok is this weird fetishization of a villain among left-wing and liberal Americans with Elon Musk as the “bad guy.”
The left, as a platform and not individual people, has been painting Elon as this villain. A friend pointed out that the left isn’t the problem but it’s the far left and that we shouldn’t get those two confused. However, I think it’s too late.
The idea that Elon Musk is a bad guy because he is a billionaire and could help the homeless but doesn’t is cemented among many of my left-leaning friends. I’ve had personal friends tell me that I am a horrible person for supporting Elon Musk.
What the left-wing media doesn’t inform its followers is that there is a difference between net worth and actual money in the bank. Elon can’t just go and withdraw $6 billion. He has to sell stocks in his companies which requires filing forms with the SEC and we all know that when it comes to issues with money, the government is slower than Christmas.
The left, to me, used to be about clean air, solving climate change, helping the poor, and advocating for equality and equal rights for everyone. And I’m sure it meant similar to Elon — his values aligned with what the left used to be.
By vilifying Elon Musk, the far-left betrayed not only betrayed him but convinced many of the average left-leaning Americans who don’t really have time to do anything other than work to make ends meet, into believing that Elon is the root of their problem.
‘He’s a billionaire, you’re poor and working hard. He doesn’t pay taxes and you have to choose between rent and food. He wants to go to Mars, how silly is this when you can’t even afford gas. He wants people to have more babies but you can’t afford to have kids.’
Although those italicized statements are true with the exception of him not paying taxes, they are all very misleading. There is no explanation as to why Elon wants to go to Mars, why you can’t afford gas, why he wants people to have more babies, and why you can’t afford to.
If you were to deeply research the whys of these statements, you’d realize that Elon is the only billionaire who is actually working to solve many of the problems that will affect us as a species.
However, it’s easier to vilify Elon Musk than to solve the root causes of poverty.
Elon Musk: “Believe In Good”
One thing that Elon Musk taught me was to look for the good — that what seems good could actually be dark and vice versa. In fact, he once told me that when I was experiencing an incredibly dark time.
“Believe in good,” he said to me on Twitter.
At the time, I thought he was just trying to be kind — comforting a stranger online. And although this is true, it’s more than just a word of comfort. He was encouraging me to look for the good in a bad situation.
And this is what we all must do. Both sides, left and right, have their pros and cons. And this is because both sides are made up of humans. Humans have the capacity for both good and evil. We are creatures of duality.
We need to look for the good not just within ourselves, but also within others. Especially if they are labeled as the enemy by the media.
One Thing I Would Advise Elon Musk
The one thing I would advise Elon Musk to do is to simply be aware of the powerful manipulation games and tactics used to either get him to react or to get him on a political side.
Elon’s voice can be weaponized by either side, and I know for a human being who values free speech, it must be really, really hard to be silent on things because you know your voice could have a disastrous impact.
I can say something such as “I’m going to refrain from eating chocolate for 90 days,” but if Elon were to say that on Twitter, it could affect the stock market, especially in companies such as Mars or Nestle.
Understand the power that you have and understand that people want to use it for their benefit. And don’t estimate how low someone could go to get that power.
