Why we shouldn’t celebrate Elon Musk

Graphic by Wednesday Laplante

The famous billionaire’s crappy personality overshadows his successes

I normally don’t pay attention to this sort of thing but, apparently, two of the biggest idiots around got together on a webcam show this past Friday. One of the idiots was Elon Musk, the so-called tech genius who runs the electric car company Tesla.

The show in question was The Joe Rogan Experience, hosted by American comedian Joe Rogan. On his show, Rogan interviews all types of people and, very often, he will placidly sit back as people say all sorts of outrageous—and frequently hateful and bigoted—things.

While Musk was being interviewed on the show, Rogan took out a massive joint, sparked it and proceeded to start smoking. Rogan said to Musk, “I guess you can’t smoke because of shareholders, right?” So, obviously Musk had to take a toke.

He got reverse-psychology-ed by the guy from the 90s sitcom News Radio who now talks about random nonsense for a living. You’re telling me Musk is the guy who will bring electric vehicles to the masses and make space travel affordable for the average person? Give me a break.

And, you know what, I’m not even going to go there with Rogan. Every time someone tries to criticize the guy, all the free-speech crusaders get upset for harshing on a freethinker.

But the reality is, Rogan was the host of a television show where contestants laid down in boxes of spiders and ate cow testicles. One time, he even tried to fight a contestant, while they were filming the show. Who does that? On top of it, he’s a big fan of “putting people to sleep,” a.k.a. depriving their brain of oxygen until it turns itself off. That’s not good for them, Joe. Knock it off.

So anyway, back to Musk. In the wake of his weed toke heard and seen around the world, two executives resigned from Tesla and the company’s share price had dropped by six per cent, as of Friday afternoon. Smoking weed is not even the most reckless thing Musk has done recently to put Tesla in jeopardy. About a month ago, a careless tweet resulted in a subpoena from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission for potential market manipulation by misleading investors. Tesla’s share price has dropped 11 per cent since the beginning of June because of Musk’s antics. What an admirable leader.

All of this is to say, to hell with Musk. He’s not a hero; he’s an idiot. Remember back in July, when a genius-hero team of international diving experts saved those young boys trapped in a flooded cave in Thailand? Remember how the world celebrated the crew? Musk called one of them a pedophile because they rejected his extravagant idea in trying to help the boys. This is the kind of person we’re dealing with here.

He sucks. He is a waste of our energy and focus at a time when we really need to have our heads in the game. Surely, there are other people who know how to make electric cars and solar panels who aren’t completely unbearable to deal with?

Graphic by Wednesday Laplante

Related Posts