Updated: A year ago at the blog we were talking about about the disconnect between Musk pontificators and the reporters on the beat. Let’s see how that’s going
As soon as I run a post, perfect examples start showing up.
NEW: Why, of all the world’s billionaires, do progressives love to hate Elon Musk, whose fortune comes from taking electric vehicles mainstream? https://t.co/Jpi7Okj9Kg
— Alex Seitz-Wald (@aseitzwald) April 29, 2022
barely scratched the complex surface
— Lora Kolodny (@lorakolodny) April 29, 2022
___________________________________________
Picking up from Wednesday and Noah Smith's misinformed defense of the non-founder of Tesla and PayPal.
While Musk's attempt to buy Twitter has focused the attention of many in the press and a lot of disturbing stories have come out since last year, many commentators are still perplexed at the hostility toward Elon, particularly among liberals who, according to conventional wisdom, should be the ones who hold him in the highest regard.
An example from an associate editor of Reason (I assume center-right politically).
Worth noting that by 2021, Tesla had largely dropped out of the clean energy business.Elon Musk is left-leaning, is a card-carrying member of the ACLU (and one of its biggest donors), and is in charge of a company that has helped revolutionize clean energy & climate-friendly transportation.
— Billy Binion (@billybinion) April 25, 2022
But some people despise him because…he has a lot of money?
In the fourth quarter of 2017, Tesla reported a 43% drop in solar deployments compared with when it purchased SolarCity. The company ended up losing its market-leading position in 2018 and now hovers around 2% of the residential solar market, according to Wood Mackenzie. (Read more...)