Fresh Economic Thinking

Share this post

Why isn't Elon Musk a hero of the left?

www.fresheconomicthinking.com

Discover more from Fresh Economic Thinking

New ideas and analysis by Dr Cameron K. Murray
Over 3,000 subscribers
Continue reading
Sign in

Why isn't Elon Musk a hero of the left?

You drive a Tesla, have Solar City panels installed, use Starlink internet, and then complain about Elon Musk on Twitter all day. What do you want?

Cameron Murray
Nov 26, 2022
10
Share this post

Why isn't Elon Musk a hero of the left?

www.fresheconomicthinking.com
28
Share

Cast your mind back to the early 2000s when climate concerns shifted from fringe to mainstream. The talk then was about electrification, energy efficiency, and renewable energy.

Imagine that a left political leader enacted a policy forcing every car company to shift from petroleum fuel to electricity. A hero they would be.

That leader already had accolades from previously starting a state-run bank that offered online payment services at drastically lower cost while being easier to use, undercutting margins from the big banks. A gift to the people.

Then, as the policy of electrifying cars progressed, he accelerated the adoption of home solar and battery storage.

And then he started offering a global satellite service that was competitive for remote areas, helping make internet access more equitable between the city and country.

Lastly, he pushes for peaceful negotiations between Ukraine and Russia to avoid further escalation of the war.

This is the dream leader of the left by any standards I would say.

But yet Elon Musk, who accomplished these same things, is somehow hated by the elite left. What gives?

Musk is in some ways part entrepreneur, part showman, part meme

A friend of mine recently observed the following.

The huge backflip in how left opinion leaders (I can't think of a better name) treat Elon Musk is fascinating and bizarre. Take this article. Lumping together the failure of an offshore crypto scammer with a guy possibly over-paying for a profitable social media company is just stupid. What's the goal here? How do they all KNOW they're supposed to now hate Musk?

And here is Dr Vinay Prasad noting the outbreak of an insane culture war over Elon Musk’s Twitter acquisition.

Vinay Prasad's Observations and Thoughts
Why is news coverage of Elon Musk's Twitter always negative?
Anyone who has followed Twitter news over the last month has to conclude the news is biased towards the negative. Nearly every headline I read is critical. For a while, pundits predicted the entire website would crash; Spoiler alert, it did no such thing…
Read more
10 months ago · 60 likes · 4 comments · Vinay Prasad

Why is this happening? Please let me know your views in the comment.

Reminder: latest podcast

Fresh Economic Thinking
FET #12: The great unwinding of COVID and crypto
Listen now (26 min) | “Prediction. In ten years it will be hard to find anyone who will admit to supporting COVID lockdowns, school closures, masks, and vaccine passports.” That was Cameron’s viral tweet this week. It gets to the heart of the great unwinding of COVID panic, an opinion shift that is becoming more evident by the day…
Listen now
10 months ago · 1 comment · Cameron Murray

Thanks for reading Fresh Economic Thinking! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.

10
Share this post

Why isn't Elon Musk a hero of the left?

www.fresheconomicthinking.com
28
Share
28 Comments
Share this discussion

Why isn't Elon Musk a hero of the left?

www.fresheconomicthinking.com
Aidan
Writes Aidan movie opinions blah blah …
Nov 26, 2022Liked by Tim Helm, Cameron Murray

He's a billionaire who isn't keen on unions so I'm not too surprised that leftists do not like him. He's also a bit of a nob which will put off people regardless of their politics - I don't think I've heard anyone say a nice thing about him irl.

On a related note, I think most leftists (particularly younger ones) aren't too enamoured with electric cars. Public transit is quite en vogue which cuts away at Musk's prestige.

Expand full comment
Reply
Share
4 replies
Oliver
Nov 26, 2022·edited Nov 26, 2022Liked by Tim Helm

Mostly I think it’s a question of tribal identity. There’s the obvious take that he’s an anti union billionaire, but there’s a lot of “left-wing” people who like “green” rich people (in Australia, Simon Holmes a Court for example). It’s that he doesn’t signal his tribal identity properly, he doesn’t beat his chest and say “diversity” or whatever. I think he is bad because he’s a billionaire and I think no one should be a billionaire from a Rawlsian perspective but I don’t think that’s the main impetus for the anti Elon stuff

Expand full comment
Reply
Share
1 reply
26 more comments...
Top
New
Community

No posts

Ready for more?

© 2023 Cameron Murray
Privacy ∙ Terms ∙ Collection notice
Start WritingGet the app
Substack is the home for great writing