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G. Barry's avatar

Nothing about this article actually refutes the claims made by the original article. At best, you elevate Elon's denial of his family benefiting from apartheid and his version of his origin-myth, while being unable to refute the claims made by his father. Somehow this is presented as dispelling some kind of myth when really you are begging the reader to believe one man's words over the other's.

What is perhaps worse is your downplaying of what kind of economic advantage $400k afforded those who yielded such wealth in apartheid era South Africa. This might just be a lack of familiarity with economic arguments — suggesting that $400k is "just a few Teslas" is downright laughable and ignores obvious issues like what kind of power $400k could yield in a country where income disparity between white-ruling class South Africans and black South Africans was incalculable. Making this claim is like suggesting that you aren't massively wealthy today if you possess $200,000 while living in the slums of Dharavi or Favelas of Brazil.

The rest of the article just reads as the regular hagiography we've come to expect from Musk apologists. Note how you question whether the words of Elon's father can be considered valid, but you present Elon's own claims about his origins as though they are true; Elon's claims about being given $2,000 and having no other support, his heroic rise against all odds — these are all published with deference, while all other claims are thrown out (could not be corroborated, and so on).

I'm going to ignore the apologism for the Paedo-Submarine fiasco because quite honestly, you do yourself a disservice attempting to engage in apologism for his behavior here. Not that you began the article with any semblance of neutrality (convinced of the myth from the outset) — but by the time we finish reading it's apparent that this is just blatant apologism masquerading as some kind of fact-based myth busting.

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Matt G.'s avatar

While I will admit your appreciation of Elon and his astounding rise to success is clear, this is a very well written article and the “Why this is important” passage at the end struck a chord with me. There is so much mis-information that is being actively propagated by the “mainstream” news outlets that it leads to huge polarization between the left and right(which is really, really bad. I.E. political horseshoe theory). It reminds me of the philosophical idea of the “banality of evil”

I like that you really did a deep dive and clarified the apartheid claim, I definitely don’t think that has any merit whatsoever and was used merely to generate revenue/social justice rabble on Twitter.I don’t think everyone should rally to Elon’s defense because there are some tangible, problematic things he has done or said, but I agree he deserves the same fairness that should be applied to any public figure.

The polarization between supporters or the “musketeers” and the denouncers demonstrates beautifully how often people forget to think critically and rely on bias consciously and unconsciously(on both sides).

Thanks for the great article; we need more REAL investigative journalism. How can we be a free society when the media is more interested in profits than the actual facts of the situation?

I’m glad I found this because since there was no snopes.com article or in depth fact check all I really knew was that it started with an anecdote from Errol and I already began to doubt that because it was not substantiated, probably never can be, and Errol is definitely not a “reliable narrator”.

He contradicts himself often in the few interviews or comments he has given over the years, as Elon has called him out for being a scumbag.

Bravo! I will definitely consider donating to the site but money is right now because of the pandemic.

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