For a very long time, Musk was fighting many very rich entrenched interests that mostly were right aligned, like auto dealerships, oil and gas companies (Koch Bros), and government contractors in space exploration (ULA and their parent companies, Lockheed and Boeing). That extended to Wall Street and the disinformation campaigns were extensive, pervasive, and unrelenting in their distortion of reality and predictions of doom for Musk's companies. Quite a few folks on Wall Street placed bets against Tesla and were very vocal going on various business media outlets to promote their negative assessment.
However, just as Musk was achieving what Democrats have been touting about their climate change initiatives, that pushing the Green New Deal actually means economic prosperity and being at the forefront of change, they decided that Musk's wealth was a target, regardless of his fulfillment of their climate change initiatives. After all, many Democrat initiatives towards incentivizing clean energy production and electrification were to spur companies like Tesla towards what they wanted companies to accomplish. The root of this effort comes back to the UAW which started a smear campaign against Tesla right around when they were trying, unsuccessfully, to unionize Nissan's plant in Tennessee. And as Tesla grew and Musk's wealth grew, fulfilling the vision of some of the tenets of the Green New Deal, Senators Sanders, Warren, and other Democratic Party pundits like Robert Reich were pushing an anti-Tesla and anti-Musk agenda. They knew they were promoting half truths, distorting the difference between unrealized wealth gains and income. They wanted a wealth tax and for UAW to unionize Tesla, which may lead to the unionization of the rest of the auto plants in the US. Most folks don't realize that BMW and Volvo (South Carolina), Mercedes and Hyundai (Alabama), Kia (Georgia), Nissan (Tennessee), Honda, Toyota (many like Ohio, Kentucky, WV, etc), Lucid (Arizona), Rivian (southern Illinois), and others build at non-union plants in almost all red states.
Between the attacks from Democrats and the promotion of anti-work, Musk clearly thought that the left became much more a threat than the right. I don't believe he cares one way or another for any political party in the U.S.
What is most disturbing for me is the realization that many of those on the left are no better at discerning bias and reality in the media reporting than those on the right.
I also found the Collins article very dubious. I think Musk’s effect on Twitter has been terrible, but it seems like there are a couple of funny coincidences but mostly you have to really squint to tie each item in the “playbook” to something Musk did and stretch to actually like them up. The Collins article claims Musk directly followed the “playbook” and that seems not supported by the sources, just that two things look similar in a certain light. I agree it’s possible Musk saw it and that persuaded him to buy it, but the article goes way farther, in addition to mixing up “Musk should do this” with “opponents will do this.”
For a very long time, Musk was fighting many very rich entrenched interests that mostly were right aligned, like auto dealerships, oil and gas companies (Koch Bros), and government contractors in space exploration (ULA and their parent companies, Lockheed and Boeing). That extended to Wall Street and the disinformation campaigns were extensive, pervasive, and unrelenting in their distortion of reality and predictions of doom for Musk's companies. Quite a few folks on Wall Street placed bets against Tesla and were very vocal going on various business media outlets to promote their negative assessment.
However, just as Musk was achieving what Democrats have been touting about their climate change initiatives, that pushing the Green New Deal actually means economic prosperity and being at the forefront of change, they decided that Musk's wealth was a target, regardless of his fulfillment of their climate change initiatives. After all, many Democrat initiatives towards incentivizing clean energy production and electrification were to spur companies like Tesla towards what they wanted companies to accomplish. The root of this effort comes back to the UAW which started a smear campaign against Tesla right around when they were trying, unsuccessfully, to unionize Nissan's plant in Tennessee. And as Tesla grew and Musk's wealth grew, fulfilling the vision of some of the tenets of the Green New Deal, Senators Sanders, Warren, and other Democratic Party pundits like Robert Reich were pushing an anti-Tesla and anti-Musk agenda. They knew they were promoting half truths, distorting the difference between unrealized wealth gains and income. They wanted a wealth tax and for UAW to unionize Tesla, which may lead to the unionization of the rest of the auto plants in the US. Most folks don't realize that BMW and Volvo (South Carolina), Mercedes and Hyundai (Alabama), Kia (Georgia), Nissan (Tennessee), Honda, Toyota (many like Ohio, Kentucky, WV, etc), Lucid (Arizona), Rivian (southern Illinois), and others build at non-union plants in almost all red states.
Between the attacks from Democrats and the promotion of anti-work, Musk clearly thought that the left became much more a threat than the right. I don't believe he cares one way or another for any political party in the U.S.
What is most disturbing for me is the realization that many of those on the left are no better at discerning bias and reality in the media reporting than those on the right.
I also found the Collins article very dubious. I think Musk’s effect on Twitter has been terrible, but it seems like there are a couple of funny coincidences but mostly you have to really squint to tie each item in the “playbook” to something Musk did and stretch to actually like them up. The Collins article claims Musk directly followed the “playbook” and that seems not supported by the sources, just that two things look similar in a certain light. I agree it’s possible Musk saw it and that persuaded him to buy it, but the article goes way farther, in addition to mixing up “Musk should do this” with “opponents will do this.”