By Diane Roberts
Let’s talk about Elon Musk, that unlovely carbuncle on the backside of the planet.
It’s not fun but given that he’s as much a threat to the rule of law as the Palm Beach Pumpkin, it’s necessary.
Musk gives aid and comfort to right wing rioters in England, stokes hatred, accusing an Olympic boxer (a woman) of being a man, does his damnedest to destroy once-valuable companies, and spreads 19th Century racist pseudo-science.
He’s also — no surprise here — supporting Donald Trump.
Musk says he voted for Joe Biden in 2020, but the president hurt his little feelings by failing to invite him to a 2021 automaker hoedown at the White House, and then the SEC started looking into the alarming way Tesla’s “autopiloted” cars’ have a habit of crashing and killing people.
Plus, Democrats have made it clear they’d like to tax the hell out of billionaires. Communism!
In 2023, Musk picked Ron DeSantis for his new BFF, calling him “centrist and sensible.”
As you will recall, Musk hosted Ronbo’s 30-car pileup of a presidential campaign launch on Twitter. The platform malfunctioned, Ronbo malfunctioned, and Musk was clearly on Mars — mentally, if not physically.
Once Ronbo self-immolated in Iowa, Musk discarded him like an empty pudding cup and cast a reptilian eye on Trump. The convicted felon and climate change denier who once said EV owners should “rot in hell,” recognized that Musk, with more money than Trump could ever dream of, might be useful.
Untroubled by principles
Like Musk himself, the Palm Beach Pumpkin has never been troubled by principles or any consistent political ideology.
He changed his tune.
“I’m for electric cars,” said Trump. “I have to be because Elon endorsed me very strongly.”
“I have no choice,” he added, probably still clinging to the hope that Musk would give his campaign $45 million a month.
Musk was never going to do any such thing, but he is throwing money at America PAC, a pro-Trump fundraising outfit and promoting demented pro-Trump propaganda on X.
Trump and Musk have a lot in common: Both harbor the epic delusion they’re central to the operation of the cosmos; both pretend (when it suits them) to be some kind of “Christian”; both exhibit an attitude to women that ranges from dismissive to hostile.
Trump’s had assorted affairs, five kids with three wives, and has been found by a jury to be guilty of rape.
Musk has at least 12 children with at least three women, some through surrogates. He’s been sued for presiding over (and contributing to) an “Animal House” atmosphere in his companies and accused of pressuring employees — even interns — for sex.
He’s having a little trouble with his transgender daughter, too. She’s his “lost” son, a beloved child he says is now “dead, killed by the “woke mind virus.”
She’s punching back hard, calling him a “serial adulterer,” a “fake,” an absent father, and all around jerk she refuses to have anything to do with.
‘Childless cat ladies’
Like Trump’s running mate Corporal Eyeliner, Musk sees women as lesser beings, fetal incubators.
Vance wants all those sad “childless cat ladies” to get themselves some righteous female satisfaction by popping out a passel of young ’uns.
Musk is worse. In his mind, women must step up and be fertile, producing a new generation to populate his extra-terrestrial empire.
In a 2023 interview with Tucker Carlson, he complained about “birth control, abortions, and whatnot,” which allow women to have sex without getting pregnant.
Why should they control their own bodies when he, Elon Musk, world’s wealthiest dweeb, could inject them with his godlike sperm and generate master-race spawn?
Women who worked for him report that he’d hit on them, saying they should “have his babies.”
No wonder he and Trump get along: They’re both predatory, crude, and creepy AF.
Above all, Trump and Musk share a deep dislike of democracy.
Trump’s campaign is based on the old lie that the 2020 election was “stolen,” and the new lie that the 2024 election is “rigged,” even though not one ballot has yet been cast.
He warns of a “bloodbath” if he loses in November; he’s installed conspiracy theorists on the boards that will certify votes — or not; he might even think “his” Supreme Court will install him as President-for-Life.
‘Beautiful Christians’
Trump told his “beautiful Christians,” and repeated on “Fox News,” that if he wins, they needn’t ever vote again.
He’s also said the Constitution should be “terminated.”
This would be cool with Elon Musk. He’s not keen on the Constitution or laws or government by the people or anything else that might interfere with his megalomaniacal designs.
At the height of the COVID pandemic, he told Tesla workers to get back to the plant or he’d fire them. The result? More than 400 employees got sick.
His Texas “space city” is a morass of environmental violations, polluted water discharged in the Colorado River, septic system disasters, erosion — lovely!
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The virtual toxic waste dump he calls X and most everybody else still calls Twitter has been hemorrhaging money, but maybe Musk doesn’t care: It’s his personal soap box; he can use it to rant about puberty blockers, amplify antisemitism, attack journalists who investigate him, spread crazy conspiracy theories (dead Hillary Clinton replaced by a body double?), and enable the likes of Tommy Robinson, the white nationalist igniting racist riots in the U.K.
Now that Musk has embraced Trump, his brother in sociopathic narcissism, X will be even more of a festival of campaign misinformation, hatred, and racism.
The recent deepfake videos of Kamala Harris manipulated to sound as though she can’t put a sentence together or calling herself a “DEI hire” (never happened) would seem to violate X’s own policy against “synthetic” material.
But hey, Musk is the boss of X.
And he wants to be the boss of you and everyone else.
Wait till Donald Trump figures that out.
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Diane Roberts is an 8th-generation Floridian, born and bred in Tallahassee. Educated at Florida State University and Oxford University in England, she has been writing for newspapers since 1983, when she began producing columns on the legislature for the Florida Flambeau. Her work has appeared in the New York Times, the Times of London, the Guardian, the Washington Post, the Oxford American, and Flamingo. She has been a member of the Editorial Board of the St. Petersburg Times–back when that was the Tampa Bay Times’s name–and a long-time columnist for the paper in both its iterations. She was a commentator on NPR for 22 years and continues to contribute radio essays and opinion pieces to the BBC. Roberts is also the author of four books.
The dude says
Diaper Don hated EV’s but now loves teslas…
What changed his mind, hmmm???…
The honest answer should be enough for anyone with integrity and intelligence to conclude he should not be the next leader of the free world. Diaper Don would be just one “favor” or “gift” or even just one compliment away from handing our country over to our enemies. Literally.
Pogo says
@The dude
The perfectly stated truth. Thank you.
Kath says
You need to be fact checked, please stop, the name calling!!! We get no where with that !!! I will pray for you 🙏. Our children are watching 👀! We all need to do better… facts ! Example he was not convicted of rape!. You should be talking policy, not gossip 🙄. Look up court records. You might be surprised. It doesn’t madder what side your on , you need facts & policy to make a difference. People are worried out about the border,crime ,prices of food, housing. .list goes on .please wake ⏰️ up.
Laurel says
Kath: Trump was found guilty of sexual assault, to which the judge said equated to rape.
So, who in your political sphere uses name calling?
Now, please tell me how the border effects you personally. This I want to hear.
To pray for others, who are not interested in your motivation, is extremely self serving. Keep it to yourself.
The dude says
“Now, please tell me how the border effects you personally.”
Well, Floriduh tax dollars in the tunes of millions, maybe hundreds of millions are going to fly immigrants from other states to other states.
That money could have gone towards making Kath’s and all of our lives a little better.
I promise you not one single immigrant swimming across the Rio Grande today has in mind trekking to central Florida to live in the air conditioned comfort of a gated community just to sit and bitch online about immigrants. So Kath doesn’t have to worry about them coming to “replace” her.
Laurel says
Dude: F-L-O-R-I-D-A.
We all come from immigrants, who create businesses, ideas, and are extremely patriotic simply because they know better, and DeSantis is an idiot, in my opinion, to waste our money showboating.
By the way, who give a flying fig about “gated communities”? I don’t live in one, but don’t give a damn if others enjoy a false sense of security. I just can’t figure out why it keeps coming up. You and PT seem to be obsessed.
The dude says
Aproposo of nothing… Laurel I know where you live. My best friend in the world lives on that street and I myself spend plenty of time there on your street.
We agree on the whole gated community thing being a false sense of security… what it also seems to do with these MAGA folks is give them a false sense of superiority.
Floriduh is and will be Floriduh for the foreseeable future, like it or not.
It is a cesspool of uneducated, willfully stupid, toxic, and angry people… and folks like you.
If it helps, just consider that when I use that term, it’s more about a certain subset of people who hold outsized sway over how things go there.
And grow a thicker skin. It’s not healthy to be so easily insulted.
Laurel says
“It is a cesspool of uneducated, willfully stupid, toxic, and angry people… and folks like you.”
Whose the angry one?
BillC says
@ Kath You’re correct. What Trump did was forcibly insert his finger into E. Jean Carroll’s vagina. New York law defined rape as forced sexual intercourse (the insertion of the penis).
“US District Judge Lewis Kaplan, who presided over the trial, wrote that the trial evidence demonstrated Trump “raped” Carroll in the plain sense of the word.
“The finding that Ms. Carroll failed to prove that she was ‘raped’ within the meaning of the New York Penal Law does not mean that she failed to prove that Mr. Trump ‘raped’ her as many people commonly understand the word ‘rape,'” Kaplan wrote.” – Business Insider July ’23.
Laurel says
BillC: All that is disturbing enough, but what is really, really disturbing is that people will still vote for him. I can’t imagine what goes through their heads that all that, and much, much more, is acceptable for the highest office in the land.
Our kids are watching.
BillC says
@ Laurel Let’s hope Kath and others like her will consider the facts and be able to change their minds about who best represents their interests. Does it make sense to elect a convicted felon and sex offender to reduce crime? Does a country club owner care more about the cost of food and housing for the average working person more than for the interests of his wealthy club members?
Laurel says
BillC: Agreed.
Sherry says
@ kath. . .
While trump was ONLY found guilty for “Sexual Assault” (that isn’t terrible enough for you?), Judge Kaplan said E Jean Carroll was raped by trump:
“As the court explained in its recent decision denying Mr Trump’s motion for a new trial on damages and other relief [in the New York case] … based on all of the evidence at trial and the jury’s verdict as a whole, the jury’s finding that Mr Trump ‘sexually abused’ Ms Carroll implicitly determined that he forcibly penetrated her digitally – in other words, that Mr Trump in fact did ‘rape’ Ms Carroll as that term commonly is used and understood in contexts outside of the New York penal law.”
In addition, kath. . . spelling counts (this is not a typo). . . it’s “matter” with a “t”. . . not “madder”. Your children are watching.
JimboXYZ says
Another brilliant article by Diane Roberts (sarcasm intended). What if Musk donated money to Harris-Walz. He already voted for Biden-Harris. So that makes Tulsi Gabbard & Elon Musk as bright enough to realize Biden-Harris for the fraud it is. With Roberts anyone that doesn’t fall in line with her concept of a perfectly imperfect Democrat party line gets a scolding by editorial that nobody would ever neither confuse, nor mistake for Op-Ed.
Laurel says
Jimboxyz: Please explain the “Biden-Harris fraud.”
DaleL says
Elon Musk said/claimed he voted for Biden in 2020. American elections are by secret ballot. It is known that Donald Trump contributed twice to the Harris 2014 reelection campaign in 2011 and 2013. Election campaign donations are public record.
I judge how nice or not people are by 1. Would I want to live next to them? 2. Would I want to have them watch my home while I’m away? 3. Would I want them to watch my dog.
Trump and Musk fail on all accounts.
Shark says
And I see Bobble – Head Pence is there.
Willie says
I wonder if don the con talked about magnets exploding underwater?
Land of no turn signals says says
You don’t have to be a fan of EV’s to be a fan of Elon. Don’t be jealous,great minds think a like.Try not to be on the haters bus.
Laurel says
Land: So why is it that every time someone disagrees with the far right they are automatic “haters”? Is that a Fox thing?
Jim says
Elon Musk is the poster child for the problem of the super rich in this country. He owns his own soapbox (Twitter) and he routinely violates it’s rules because he’s the Boss. This shows the lack of morals and ethics he has.
I’m all for capitalism and I think people who are successful in our system should be rewarded. But I can not accept that the system is so slanted to the rich that it must be maintained this way. We need to tax the super rich more and they can certainly afford it. They wouldn’t even miss the money (except on their financial statement). And for those who scream “socialism” or “communism”, please… Did you know that the rich paid between 75% and 90% tax in the WW2 timeframe? I’m not saying that taxes should be that high but we need to tip the scales in favor of society, not the top 1%.
I look at Musk and Trump and wonder why we’ve fallen so far in regards to treating all people equally, following laws, and the like. Can anyone imagine Trump stating “Ask not what your country can do for you – ask what you can do for your country,” like Kennedy did? Trump is only about himself and in that regard, he and Musk are the same.
On the comical side, I do look forward to the comments defending these two fine fellows….
Sally says
Two rich boys that only care about themselves, the White Rich Boys Club.
Sherry says
Musk could actually be worse than trump. . . certainly he is a lot smarter:
There are, unfortunately, many other countries that now have to pay attention to Musk’s deranged online rants due to his widespread stranglehold over essential tech infrastructure—and his inescapable ties to the U.S. government. Last year, a bombshell report from the New Yorker’s Ronan Farrow detailed the troubling extent to which Biden administration officials have to pamper Musk in light of SpaceX’s multiple federal contracts—including, most urgently, for Starlink satellite internet services needed by Ukrainian soldiers fending off Russian aggressors. His erratic statements on the Russia-Ukraine War have never granted confidence that he will continue to support this infrastructure for the Eastern European country, or even for the civilians suffering in Gaza, in light of his buddy-buddy relationship with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Musk is also doing his damndest to ensure the racist, antisemitic “Great Replacement Theory” sticks internationally. Late last year, he made a fearmongering visit to the U.S. southern border, helping to stoke the rampant anti-immigrant sentiment that has led federal and regional governments in both America and Mexico to install policies that have kept migrants and asylum-seekers—including children—in inhumane conditions, wasting public resources on ineffective cruelty.
Even Musk’s cast-off remarks regarding countries he’s not so entwined with are likely to promote harm. He was just one of many far-right bullies to baselessly refer to Algerian Olympic competitor (and gold medalist) Imane Khelif as a transgender man trying to infiltrate women’s boxing, leading Khelif to file a legal complaint in Paris that called Musk out specifically. Two months ago, he claimed that the policies of Germany’s far-right Alternative for Germany party “don’t sound extremist”—even though members of that party have repeatedly deployed literal Nazi rhetoric and have even been accused of carrying out espionage reconnaissance for governments hostile to Germany. In 2022, Musk also cheered on the minority of Canadian truckers who laid siege to Ottawa in opposition to their government’s COVID-vaccination mandates, even as those striking truckers were alleged to have beaten and otherwise harmed Ottawans.
Have a Bunch of Degenerate Gamblers Figured Out How to Predict Elections?
Just earlier this year, Musk went on a tweeting crusade against a Brazilian Supreme Court justice after the judiciary had ordered the government to block several X accounts for spreading electoral misinformation, which had culminated in an attempted coup from supporters of former far-right President Jair Bolsonaro. Again, legitimate concerns over Justice Alexandre de Moraes’ actions led to something much darker and more alarming, with Musk piggybacking on conspiracist Michael Shellenberger to claim “De Moraes interfered with the Brazil election” that ousted Bolsonaro—even though Shellenberger was exposed in Brazil for blatantly lying about Moraes’ moves and was forced to apologize for it. (Musk has continued to carry water for the democracy-undermining Bolsonaro family.)
It’s not hard to see where all this is going. Elon Musk thinks a “tough” and “intimidating” figurehead on the international stage must run interference for far-right disruptors in other countries and cite outright, unapologetic lies as justification. If he’s causing this much trouble now, imagine how much more of a threat he could pose to “global security” as a close lackey to Donald Trump, should the former president win in November.
Endless dark money says
Elon got his money from an emerald mine in Africa I’m sure his family worked hard for lol. Trump is a known criminal and just horrible disgrace of a human being. It’s pretty corrupt when the political party has to sabatoge the lower courts and pay off the higher courts so their convict fuher isn’t held accountable anymore. Hopefully people can stop the known theft of our country by the gop and send them packing. As you know he will not succeed power which is extremely dangerous and criminal.
James says
https://i0.wp.com/flaglerlive.com/wp-content/uploads/musk-trump.jpg?ssl=1
Trump: “Elon… (dramatic pause)… I AM YOUR FATHER.”
Musk: “Ya know, dad… somehow I always knew.”