Tesla CEO Elon Musk attends the opening of a Tesla factory in Gruenheide, Germany, on March 22.Patrick Pleul/The Associated Press
We get it – Elon Musk gets his kicks from crossing the line.
The CEO of Tesla Inc. and SpaceX fancies himself a free-speech crusader. Shock and awe is his gimmick, especially on Twitter. Not only does he claim he will make good on his agreement to buy the social-media platform, but he uses it to hone his anti-hero persona with every outlandish tweet.
But Mr. Musk has gone too far this time. His twisted musings about Russia-Ukraine, China-Taiwan and Kanye West have completed his transformation from mischief maker to miscreant in the corporate world.
Enough is enough. Mr. Musk doesn’t get a pass because he’s a bad-boy billionaire. It’s time for consumers and governments around the world to boycott electric-car maker Tesla and Mr. Musk’s other businesses.
For those of you who are still unfamiliar with Mr. Musk’s latest transgressions, let me catch you up.
It began earlier this month when he offered his prescription for a Russia-Ukraine peace plan. It took the form of a Twitter poll, but the underlying suggestion was that Ukraine ought to give in to Russia’s key demands.
Understandably, that drew the ire of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, who responded with his own poll asking his Twitter followers which Elon Musk they prefer: one who supports Ukraine or one who supports Russia. (Just take a guess.)
But instead of realizing that he was out of his depth on geopolitics, Mr. Musk dug in his heels. “War is the ultimate Supreme Court,” he tweeted before picking a fight with Ian Bremmer, president and founder of Eurasia Group, a political risk consultancy.
You see, Mr. Bremmer wrote about Mr. Musk’s misguided Twitter poll in his newsletter this week and offered his readers the backstory. In short, Mr. Musk was functioning as Russian President Vladimir Putin’s mouthpiece.
“i spoke with elon two weeks ago, and he told me putin (in a direct conversation with him) was ‘prepared to negotiate,’” Mr. Bremmer wrote. (He has a thing about writing in lower-case letters.)
“there were three components: (1) crimea remains russian, (2) ukraine accepts a formal status of neutrality, and (3) recognition of russia’s annexations of luhansk and donetsk, kherson control for the water supply to crimea, and zaporizhzhia for the land bridge. putin said these were goals he would accomplish ‘no matter what’–the alternative being major escalation.”
And then came the kicker: “musk also appeared concerned about more direct threats from putin. while he didn’t surface anything explicit with me, he did talk about russian cyber capabilities and russia’s potential to disrupt his satellites.”
That, of course, is a nod to SpaceX’s Starlink satellite internet service, which has been credited for keeping Ukrainian soldiers online but has experienced outages in the war zone.
The Kremlin and Mr. Musk have denied having talks, but Mr. Bremmer has no reason to lie.
Let’s face it, Mr. Musk’s Twitter poll reeked of self-interest – and not just because of Starlink. Tesla’s stock price has been drifting lower on the Nasdaq because of the knock-on effects of the war.
Specifically, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has created an energy crisis in Europe that is driving up the cost of electricity, hurting Tesla’s business operations in Germany and making it too costly for people to charge their electric cars.
Mr. Musk’s recent defence of China (with respect to its brewing conflict with Taiwan) was equally self-serving. Tesla manufactures a sizable portion of its vehicles in China and its Chinese-made electric vehicles recently set a monthly sales record.
Why else would a self-professed free-speech warrior like Mr. Musk kowtow to China – a country that has reportedly blocked the rollout of Starlink because of its affinity for censorship.
“My recommendation … would be to figure out a special administrative zone for Taiwan that is reasonably palatable, probably won’t make everyone happy,” Mr. Musk recently told the Financial Times.
Beijing cheered his proposal. Mr. Musk’s speech may be free, but his propaganda is priceless.
That brings us to the fish tale that Mr. Musk is spinning about Mr. West, an American rapper also known as Ye, whose antisemitic tirades on social media are too horrific to repeat.
Mr. Musk revealed himself to be a quisling when he welcomed Mr. West back to Twitter and called him a “friend” after an offensive Instagram post. And after Mr. West unleashed more hate on Twitter, Mr. Musk gave him the benefit of the doubt once again.
“Talked to ye today & expressed my concerns about his recent tweet, which I think he took to heart,” Mr. Musk tweeted on Monday.
Right.
Mr. Musk never had much humility but he is losing what’s left of his humanity. Responsible corporate leaders don’t give cover to bigots nor do they foment geopolitical risk for personal gain.
Perhaps his feelings are hurt because Tesla was kicked out of the S&P 500 ESG Index or because Mr. Musk lives for the breathless media coverage of his every mental hiccup. Or maybe he wasn’t hugged enough as a child.
The reason doesn’t matter. Let’s not enrich him further. Consumers should boycott his businesses and governments should stop providing subsidies for his cars.
His mirth has morphed into mayhem. Decent people shouldn’t stand for it.