Below is my column in the New York Post on the increasing political violence on the left, particularly targeting Elon Musk, his companies, and his clients. There have been more arrests of people engaging in property destruction. What is most striking, however, is how Democrats have torched their core beliefs to pursue a scorched Earth campaign against Musk.
Here is the column:
In this “Age of Rage, it is common for people to become the very thing that they despise in others, jettisoning their most cherished values to strike out at those they hate.
Since the election, Democrats have shown that very self-destructive quality of rage in adopting anti-immigrant, anti-free speech, anti-labor, and even anti-environmental positions to get at Donald Trump or his supporters.
It consumes every part of a person. It is addictive, and it is contagious. What these rage addicts will not admit, however, is that they like it; they need it.
This time, they are targeting Elon Musk, whose dealerships, charging stations, and customers have been hit by political violence from the left.
While other billionaires from George Soros to Mark Zuckerberg have spent big on elections for the left, Musk is somehow uniquely evil because he gives money to Republicans and supports the Trump Administration.
This scorched Earth campaign was evident this week in New York, where democratic legislators are again moving to weaponize state laws for political purposes — just like they did with Trump.
New York state Sen. Pat Fahy (D-Albany) is pledging to bar Musk from direct sales in the state.
Notably, Fahy has been a longtime advocate of electric vehicles. The move will make it more difficult not just for Musk but other EV dealers to survive, but climate change policies be damned. Fahy and her colleagues want to get at Musk in any way they can.
Fahy explained, “No matter what we do, we’ve got to take this from Elon Musk. He’s part of an effort to go backwards.”
The move is not unique:
* The left decries political violence like January 6th but is largely silent as Teslas are set on fire and Cybertrucks are covered with graffiti. It promote boycotts and rallies with a wink at the vandals. As the violence increases around the country, the left has held protests featuring signs like “Burn a Tesla, Save Democracy.”
* Democrats have made the defense of immigration a core issue and have objected even to the use of the term “illegal” or “unlawful” to refer to those crossing the Southern border. Yet, they have attacked Musk due to his status as a naturalized citizen. He is denounced as a “foreigner” “meddling” in our government. Some questioned Musk’s loyalty because he is a naturalized American.
* Those who insist that they believe in free speech are supporting censorship and opposing Musk for restoring free speech protections on X.
* In California, labor advocates oppose expanded operations from SpaceX that would benefit workers in the state. California Coastal Commissioner Gretchen Newsom tried to block increased SpaceX launches despite their benefit for both the California economy and national security. Because he “aggressively injected himself into the presidential race,” it does not mater that this would cost money and labor opportunities. Retaliation for “hopping about the country, spewing and tweeting political falsehoods” was more important.
Still, the greatest hypocrisy may be found in the Democrats’ willingness to abandon environmental priorities for political revenge. It is a contest of virtue-signaling. Fighting for Mother Earth is fine on most days, but nothing compares to destroying Elon Musk.
Lawmakers and advocates are also pressuring pension funds to divest from Tesla while trying to force Tesla showrooms to close — at the cost of New York jobs.
Tesla is an American company making and selling cars in this country. It sells more electric vehicles in the US and New York than any other manufacturer. Yet it must now be destroyed because, unlike a Soros or a Zuckerberg, Musk’s political views are not acceptable to the left.
Tesla was allowed to operate five locations to directly sell to consumers under a 2014 deal because it was viewed as good for New York jobs, the New York economy, and, most importantly, the environment.
None of that matters now.
Fahy explained, “The bottom line is, Tesla has lost their right to promote these when they’re part of an administration that wants to go backwards. Elon Musk was handed a privilege here.”
It also does not matter that companies like Rivian and Lucid (and their employees) will be caught in the crossfire. Nothing matters but revenge.
Many Democrats seem to have lost a capacity for shame. They are disgusted only by the refusal of others to yield to their demands, not the use of any means to achieve political ends. The question is, what do Democrats like Fahy now stand for when everything they are is now defined by those they hate?
Jonathan Turley is the Shapiro professor of public interest law at George Washington University and the author of “The Indispensable Right: Free Speech in an Age of Rage.”
Donald J. Trump is the most courageous President of America since Abraham Lincoln. The great Republican President Lincoln demonstrated his courage when he refused to abide by the ruling of the Democrat-run SCOTUS (with opinion by Democrat Roger Taney) that, in essence, Blacks are merely property. (Democrats still hold that view today and the Democrat Party still considers them their property, which is why Joe Biden infamounsly said, “if you ain’t voting for me, you ain’t Black.”)
Today, the great Republican President Donald J. Trump is pitting his Administration of Patriots againt the current current Corrupt Deep State Judiciary of Democrats and RINOs (which are essential Democrat-“Light”) that are trying to stage a Democrat Coup d’Etat to force their anti-American agenda on the public to promote crime, filth, depravity, degeneracy, and the destruction of Anmerica itself on behalf of the Democrat Party and its evil, corrupt financiers. Will they ultimately succeed with the help of Corrupt RINOs John “Closeted Blackmailed Homosexual” Roberts, Amy Commie Barrett, and Corrupt RINO members of Congress? And, more important, will upstanding, law-abiding Americans idly stand by and let this Corrupt Evil Cabal take over? That is the real quetion.
Contrary to NY state senator Fahy I’d say that Musk (and Trump) are not taking us ‘backwards’ but are rather trying to recover a sense of the country and of citizenship that the Dems in their now years-long indenture to the woke-liberalists (the Dems ceased being Liberals decades ago) have been taking both i) downwards while simultaneously ii) taking the country and its culture and politics backwards; they have been taking what was a Constitutional republic based on democracy in an almost 180-degree turn back to a single-Party government, convinced of its own fundamental Correctness, that recalls the dynamics of the Bolsheviks (who were all for freedom of speech until they fomented a revolution in 1917, took over the struggling post-Tsarist Russian government, and through the widespread and deliberate use of terror and the gulags, established a one-Party government for the next 70 years.
Elon Musk is a national treasure. He makes money by making successful companies that employ thousands and push the envelope of the state of the art. For example, SpaceX. Whenever your car gets low on gas, what do you do – fill it up or buy a new car. Buying a new car sounds ridiculous but that was essentially the model of our space program. Now we have reusable rockets, analogous to filling the car up with gas. How much pollution and carbon output are saved by reusing instead of building each rocket new?
Musk’s personal life may be unorthodox, but his work life is exemplary: do an honest day’s work, give your employer their money’s worth, leave the world a better place than you found it, be skeptical of useless regulations that get in the way of progress. Even in his personal life, he is acting consistent with his beliefs in avoiding a demographic collapse. Most conventional wisdom focuses on overpopulation, but it is wrong. We’re in reality heading for a demographic winter with collapsing fertility rates worldwide, and people *should* have more babies. Musk at least is contributing to the extent one man can, and last I checked he provides child support of half-a-million-dollars-per-year even when he isn’t certain he’s the father.
Note: I did not read a certain commenter’s 1,000,000,000-word screed responding to my previous post on Elon. She is completely hysterical, and always wrong, so I don’t waste my time (pro-tip: people read the shorter comments; if you write 1,000,000,000-word posts, virtually nobody reads it). But everything I wrote in that comment, and in this one, is true.
Only the blind cannot see that the Left, most notably Democrats, are setting up a scenario that will lead to revolutionary conflict. The majority of Americans are fed up with the madness of the Left. We have been harassed, intimidated, threatened and even imprisoned. Our patience is gone. We have discovered that the “High Road” approach is tantamount to surrender and philosophical suicide. It’s the Left that’s proven this to us. So, continue the push. You know where it is heading. I offer this, not as a threat, but as a warning. Cease your madness before it is too.
The communists (liberals, progressives, socialists, democrats, RINOs, AINOs) hate Elon Musk and DOGE—Department of Government Efficiency.
The communists (liberals, progressives, socialists, democrats, RINOs, AINOs) love AOC, Jazzy Crockett, and DOGI—Department Of Government Incompetence.
Bring back Joe Biden. He could beat Donald Trump in his sleep.
BIDEN BEATS HIMSELF!!
Kirk,
No pornography please.
Well he did beat Medicare.
Pocahontas said she wants DOGE to provide her with receipts of what they supposedly are finding concerning fraud and waste. I don’t think she should have asked for that. I can see pallets of receipts showing up in front of Elizabeth Warrens office in the capital building.
DEMOCRATS attacking everything they said they believed in just substantiates that THEY ARE the enemy within our constitutional republic. Nothing else makes sense.
Elon Musk is a unique billionaire. He doesn’t own a yacht, and his focus is not on living it up. He has a strong moral code, involving hard work and leaving the world a better place than you found it. He spent tens of billions of his own money to restore free speech on Twitter, not because he expected a financial return, but because he believed he would lose money but the move would save western civilization (which it essentially did). His talents and work ethic have resulted in him being the riches person on earth with virtually none of his wealth inherited. They have also resulted in major advances in space exploration and electric vehicles, among others.
Now with all that background, he takes a job trying to save the American taxpayers hundreds of billions, or trillions, in foregone waste and corruption, and advising on how to restructure government to prevent similar abuses in the future. And he is getting attacked for it as if he was the devil. He was red-pilled some time ago, and he has rich friends whom he is in the process of red-pilling. He is the most productive immigrant this country has ever had, and he is hated for that too. His detractors now bizarrely attack him for actually being an immigrant, and for his advances in EV technologies.
More broadly, a Trump-Musk-Vance-Gabbard-RFK confluence of unique personalities and talents comes along once a century. We are privileged people to be living through this time.
My God are you delusional–Musk is NONE of the things you claim–NONE. He bought Twitter for power–not to “restore free speech” or “save western civilization”. What “talents” are you referring to? He didn’t invent the Tesla. He grew up rich and privileged, he lies a lot and only cares about being filthy rich. According to his biographer–excerpted:
“The simple fact is that Zip2, which brought Elon the massive financial haul he needed to do literally anything else in business in the United States, arose from an idea that he appears to have stolen. I say “appears” to have stolen because there are three separate potential sources for the idea for Zip2—and only one is Elon and his brother Kimbal.
The key one is a phonebook salesman, and another an entrepreneur who actually sued Elon for stealing the idea for Zip2. Both these well-documented claims are credible, even as the attempts by the Musk boys to discredit them and center themselves in the story of Zip2 are half-hearted and, in the judgment of this biographer, even laughable……
They’ve since enlisted family members to try to help them date the Zip2 idea as theirs; none of those claims are credible. Worse still, their own admission is that as they were materializing the Zip2 idea—again, an idea that sure seems stolen—they were acting wildly unprofessionally, in fact in ways that would make the jaw drop of anyone who has ever entered a professional workplace.
For instance, Elon and Kimbal used to engage in full-on brawls—brawls that produced blood and even hospitalization—inside the office. Not just in the office, but in front of employees. To repeat: open, barroom-style brawls; in the office; in front of co-workers; between two men who were supposed to be leading that office responsibly and sagely.
I know of no niceties of journalism that require me to say anything about this but the following: a boss who acts in this way is deranged. And presumably he’d be seen as such by any employee unlucky enough to work in an office so morally dilapidated.
But it gets worse. Elon and Kimbal took the Zip2 idea just to sell it and get rich off it; they hardly cared about its success. This is the context within which the report linked to above reveals that, by Kimbal’s own admission on a nationally disseminated TV program, while pitching their apparently stolen idea to investors both Elon and his brother were not just illegal immigrants but were hiding from prospective investors that fact…..
As noted above, we must add to all that preexisting gall the still further gall required to ask for millions and millions of dollars when you know that the workplace you’re running is one in which open brawls are taking place in full view of the employees.
If it sounds like a scheme cooked up by two obscenely wealthy, pampered rich kids, you’re right. The reason Elon has ruthlessly lied for years and years and years about how he and Kimbal even had the money to keep Zip2 going for long enough to seek investors is that the whole time they were funded by their rich, obscenely bigoted dad—a man who may be the poster-child for an unexceptional white man getting wealthy off racial apartheid in South Africa in the 1970s and 1980s, when Elon and his brother were growing up under his care.
2.
“With no Whites here [in South Africa], the Blacks will go back to the trees.”
—Errol Musk in a 2022 letter to his son Elon
Given who Elon and Kimbal’s father Errol Musk is, and what he believes about racial hierarchies, and how he made much of his money in apartheid-era South Africa, it’s no surprise that Elon and Kimbal didn’t want anyone to know that not only were they living in America off daddy’s money in the 1990s but they never would have made it in business without him and his cash.
Both Musk boys knew their father was a contemptible figure the likes of which no one in Silicon Valley would ever condone, so they lied about everything: their immigration status; the source of their startup money; their ability to conduct themselves in an office setting as professionals; even their personal politics, which were far right (Elon a bit more so than Kimbal), a fact they knew would never be accepted in California….
But there’s also evidence that Elon may have taken student loan money from the U.S. government or private lenders and funneled it into his illegal startup enterprise, which he was desperate to get off the ground during the so-called “dot com” bubble—a time when even men of middling intelligence and no fresh ideas like he and his brother could strike it ultra-rich. That’s candidly all Elon ever wanted when he was younger, and a big part of what he cares about today (the rest is discussed also, infra).
Certainly, no Musk enterprise is about rule of law. For did I mention that it was illegal for Elon to be working on Zip2 at all, just as it was illegal for him to be in America at all for much of the 1990s? Did I mention that he and his brother both knew this, but also had that casual sense of entitlement rich young white men from South Africa have when they believe they are operating in a post-Reagan American culture tailored to their needs, and a subculture in that culture (Silicon Valley) easily suckered by two right-wing, apartheid-born kids willing to unctuously pretend they’re progressives?
But it’s not just that Musk entered the American business world lawlessly, setting the tone for decades of casual disregard for the rules everyone else abides by. It’s also that Musk entered the business world with lies, another hallmark of his half-century of life.
Here’s where we have to talk about Elon Musk’s educational background—which may be the single most lied-about aspect of his biography (and that’s saying something).
3.
Understand first that Musk doesn’t believe in or care about education. Not at all. Not even a little bit. To the extent Musk has any core values, a dubious proposition indeed, this would be one: education of any kind is a waste of time. It’s one reason Musk now appears to be functionally media illiterate, functionally digitally illiterate, and lacking even the most basic knowledge about the world: certainly most of the knowledge we would expect from a high school graduate with even a nominal intellectual curiosity.
Instead of education—self- or otherwise—Elon believes in making money, and usually with the ideas of others and almost exclusively their labor. His aim is to use his dodgy skills as a hype man (like those of Donald Trump, more predicated on the idea that a sucker is born every minute than the flawed notion that he is especially persuasive or charismatic) to turn some money into more money, more money into obscene money, and obscene money into historic wealth that’s not just generational but history-making.
From the start—from his early childhood—Elon didn’t believe education (as opposed to networking) had anything to do with success. Did he come to this notion organically? Probably not. Elon isn’t particularly bright, so not surprisingly he was an indifferent student in South Africa; it may have been easier to develop a theory about education being useless than to accept that he was a mediocre intellect whose chief skill-set was the ruthless, unscrupulous, shamelessly grasping ambition he’d learned at his father’s knee.
Indeed, Elon was such an indifferent student in South Africa that he had to start telling lies to his biographers about reading multiple Encyclopedia Britannica sets all the way through—multiple, mind you! All the way through!—as a child to try to hide a human-average intelligence and an utter disinterest in organized education. It seems clear Elon’s real education came mostly from fantasy books and Dungeons & Dragons, which would be fine if they were coupled with an interest in philosophy (beyond some primitive ideas from Nietzsche and some fascistic ones from Ayn Rand), ethics, mass communications (including literacy), and the liberal arts (particularly history, writing, sociology, psychology, the creative arts, and critical thinking, some areas in which Musk’s publicly demonstrated skills should be assessed as junior high-school level).
After he graduated from high school as an indifferent student, Elon first flamed out at University of Pretoria—a school he now tries to elide from his biography altogether—largely because he didn’t want to be in South Africa at all. He had contempt for his home country, not for the reasons you might hope (apartheid) but because he believed it inadequately resourced to provide for the enrichment of an already ultra-rich young white man. His dad has since made clear that it’s a family view that the reason South Africa couldn’t provide for the Musk boys in the way they demanded was because it had an emerging highly politically engaged Black population and emerging Black political class in the 1980s that would, in the 1990s, become a Black government Errol believed illegitimate and (yes, due to race) incompetent. Errol, in interviews, ties the decline of the South African job market for well-to-do white citizens directly to Black empowerment there in the 1980s and 1990s, even as he also suggests that tourism was significantly hampered and crime significantly augmented by that very empowerment over the same period.
So not only did Elon Musk not want to be in South Africa at all, as it quite poorly fit his singular goal of becoming ultra-wealthy, but he had been taught by his father to (a) resent liberalism as the cause of the Musk boys’ inability to become even richer, and (b) be aware that if liberals believe you have far-right, apartheid-era views on race and associated topics, they won’t work with you in business and will try to stop you via government, the latter of which the Musks believe is in most nations run by only the laziest, most incompetent, and most corrupt people available (traits Errol appears to attach to non-whites and women in particular, and which Elon, in other venues, see the long link-list below, also pins to non-whites).
So not only did Musk, as he was flaming out at University of Pretoria, know that he needed to be in America to become filthy rich, he also knew he’d have to find a way to get to America while hiding from anyone he met there that he (like most if not all of his family, going back generations) had vile, horrifically regressive white-supremacist views on race, government, and business.
To obscure this, Musk concocted a frankly obscene story about choosing to leave his home country for North America because he was anti-apartheid. In fact, he was (and is) a white supremacist, which meant at the time he left South Africa not so much that he was incapable of having a non-white acquaintance with whom he was friendly but that (a) he had to that point lived a life steeped in overwhelmingly white communities and subcommunities where non-whites were deemed an unwelcome complication, (b) he wasn’t in any sense politically oriented and didn’t think or care much about the injustices of apartheid (and to the extent he did, his father was stuffing his head with the idea that the true victims of apartheid were conservative whites like the Musks), and (c) his regressive views on race and governance weren’t shaped by an education he was disinterested in but (i) his bigoted father, whom he idolized as a ruthless “alpha male” capable of helping his sons get rich, and (ii) his own inchoate sense that South Africa’s Black-run government had somehow made decisions that had rendered the country inhospitable to self-perceived white ultra-geniuses like him. He and his brother were, simply put, spoiled boys born on third base who believed that they had hit three home runs already in the game and effortlessly tripled in their fourth at-bat.
So the story—which Proof debunked—is still told today about Elon Musk regretfully leaving South Africa to avoid having to do a racism in South Africa’s military. It’s all garbage, and finds no solid base of support in any interview with his contemporaries.
It seems, instead, that Elon, like Trump, saw military service as being for suckers—and as he knew he wouldn’t become (even) richer staying in South Africa, he simply fled.
4.
It’s worth mentioning here that the Musks were indeed obscenely wealthy when Elon was a boy. Obscenely wealthy. Luxury cars, private jets, one of the nicest homes in all of South Africa. Elon made it his goal to get to America because the obscene wealth the Musks already had wasn’t enough for him—he wanted a level of wealth that would make him both famous and powerful as well, an ambition that had eluded his politics-dabbling father (a man embittered by his perception that the end of apartheid had robbed him of power he already had, and new powers and profits he urgently sought).
Elon, in other words, wanted to be filthy rich.
So Elon emigrated to Canada, where he did—well, no one really knows. All timelines he’s offered about his early months in Canada have fallen apart. His biographers can’t make heads or tails of it. In fact, there’s an entire lost year where his whereabouts are unknown, which lacuna he waves away with—per usual—unprovable, patently absurd self-mythologizing.
Though he claims he had no money when he arrived in Canada, and also claims his relatives there were eagerly offering him a place to stay, he alleges, on no paper trail whatsoever, that for a year he wandered Canada like Cain instead, doing odd and suspiciously alpha-male-like blue-collar jobs that offered little money, no housing, and had no paper trails but did conveniently establish (when relayed by biographers many years hence) his desired persona as a self-starter, dreamer, and man willing to work primarily with his hands. Which he is not.
But there’s simply no evidence any of it happened. In some timelines, there isn’t even evidence it could have happened, because the dates Elon claims for it were dates he was actually elsewhere.
There is evidence he enrolled in school…
…specifically, Queen’s University, where he once again flamed out without finishing.
At Queen’s University Elon didn’t study, by his own admission rarely went to class, and spent his time…well, partying and networking. Which makes it inexplicable and a bit suspicious that (according to his own telling) he would be accepted to Penn on a transfer with a full ride.
But per usual, all the facts surrounding Elon’s time at Penn are now fully contested.
Sometimes Elon says he had a full ride to Penn; sometimes he whines that he had to take out massive loans. Sometimes he says he graduated on time; sometimes he admits the truth—that he left Penn without graduating (if you’re counting at home, the third school he flamed out at) and didn’t get his degree until years later when his investors pulled strings to make it happen under dubious circumstances. Sometimes Elon claims to have been resident in Philly for his whole time at Penn, and sometimes he admits to hardly being there at all (which seems to be the truth of the matter). Sometimes Elon says he had help from his dad to survive at Penn financially, but sometimes he insists that he didn’t. Sometimes he admits to working on Zip2 while at Penn—which would have been illegal given his immigration status at the time—and sometimes he doesn’t.
We know this much: his dad would’ve been powerful enough to pull strings at Penn to help him get in, as he was at once wealthy and charismatic and well-connected in the United States (not to mention arguably a locally influential political figure in South Africa); Elon was certainly inexplicably flush with cash his whole time at Penn; and while he was at Penn he once again—in the continuation of a lifelong trend—didn’t give a whit for academics and mostly partied. And oh, how he partied! He somehow had the dosh to rent out two separate mansions (yes, really), one to live in and one to run as a nightclub with his mother Maye Musk as an employee, confirming Maye as being little more than a mute adjunct to the Musk men at that point in her life and candidly still today, with all of her public attention being wholly conditioned on the continued fame of her husband and (much more so) sons.
Creepy? Yes. Unusual? You bet. Explained by the Musk Family being ultra-rich white supremacists willing to be gauche, reckless, contemptible and possibly even lawless to make their way in the world as grasping poseurs? Indeed. Thus we find that Elon may have been resident at Penn for as little as 12 months and still left without a degree.
Yet again.
While we have no idea where Elon’s oodles of in-Penn money came from, it is clear it wasn’t targeted at his education, given that he was at once running the equivalent of a nightclub and was also, apparently, preparing (and more than preparing) for the effort that would become Zip2. In some instances, he apparently handed in papers from afar, as though he’d somehow gotten permission to do independent studies or to complete certain courses without final grades but a final project to be handed in long after the semester ended.
The most likely scenario, based on the data we have and with no help whatsoever from the many divergent and often implausible tales Elon himself has told, is that his dad and/or unknown connections helped him get into Penn with some sort of scholarship and that scholarship, coupled with money from his father and possible additional sources—see below—paid for all his lavish Pennsylvania living expenses. Elon may well have electively taken out additional loans, money he did not need whatsoever, to use as seed money for Zip2. Presumably he would not have been eligible for any U.S. federal loans, and we have no idea what sort of private lenders the Musks could have called upon such that Elon could later claim to have over $100,000 of debt from a period of school potentially as short as a year of residency. Oddly, Elon’s father has offered a much, much higher figure for Elon’s expenses at Penn, a staggering quarter of a million dollars, which raises significantly the odds of private lenders fundamentally bankrolling Elon’s entrepreneurial escapades rather than anything having to do with Elon’s education—an education, once again, he actually had no interest in at all.
Elon was rarely in Philly, it appears, instead spending an inordinate amount of time in a state he now loves to hate on, California. His dorm room at Penn has been described by those who knew him at the time as barely lived in at all. Little more than a bed.
5.
But if Errol Musk’s money is what actually kept Elon afloat in Canada, then America, not odd jobs Elon lied about or loans he lied about or a dodgy nightclub operation his mom worked at or unknown and unknowable private lenders or a scholarship he lied about, where did all that money come from?
We do have a likely answer on this score.
ELON MUSK
“He bought Twitter for power–not to “restore free speech” or “save western civilization”. ”
So why did he buy it – According to YOU – not to make money.
Regardless he has transformed Social Media. He is operating X with 1/10th the staff.
The rest of Social media has been forced to cut its censors too – because Muck p[roved they were a waste of money.
“He didn’t invent the Tesla.”
Telsa is a company not an invention. Neither he nor those he bought it from invented the electric car.
That said everything about the Tesla’s on the road are HIS “invention” – he Giga Factories are his invention.
The entire EV market is HIS invention. Before Musk there was no consequential EV market.
” He grew up rich and privileged,”
Not espeically.
“he lies a lot and only cares about being filthy rich.”
Obviously not.
“Good artists copy, Great artists steal”
Truly new ideas are rare.
Edison is credited with inventing the electric light bulb – but he did not.
Genius is 1% inspiration, 99% perspiration – Thomas Edison.
Zip2 was successful.
PayPal was successful.
After a rocky start Tesla is one of a handful of Trillion dollar companies.
SpaceX is entirely Musks – and Musk’s share of SpaceX dwarfs his share of Tesla.
The Boring company is all Musk.
The transformation of Twitter is all Musk.
Apple failed over and over again trying to make the Tablet PC succeed – until they did.
Everything that Apple is famous for was invented elsewhere and stolen.
And then Gates stole it from Apple.
It does not matter who you think was behind the idea of Zip2.
What matters is who made the idea succeed.
If Ideas alone are success – I am far more “successful” than Musk. I have lots of ideas.
What matters is the hardwork of succeeeding.
Those on the left think success id automatic.
It is not – there are 7 times as many business failures as successes.
You rant and rave about Musk – but ignore the FACT that he has succeeded over and over again.
You do not get to be a billionaire by accident. You do not get to be a billioaire by stealing and ripping others off.
It requires a large number of skills, most important being incredible hard work.
With respect to your nonsense about buying or selling.
Value is subjective, the only true price of anything is that which a willing buyer and willing sellor agree to.
Laticia James is in hot water for the same things she went after Trump for – except while smaller – she is not a Billionaire more agregious.
She either lied on mortgage docs or lied tot eh City or mos likely both.
“With no Whites here [in South Africa], the Blacks will go back to the trees.”
And south africa is going to h311 so aparently Errol was right.
Is it racism if you are right ?
“what he believes about racial hierarchies”
It is not called “racial hierarchies” it is called reality – South Africa is failing.
I know this is hard for you but pretty much no one has ever made money with YOUR values.
people have made money with good values and bad values.
There is no evidence at all that ones veiws on Race or any other political issue have impacted ones success.
Those of you on the left have a long long list of allegedly racist people who changed the world for the good.
Would Musk have made it without …. ?
Of course. Steve Jobs started with nothing, succeeded at Apple, was thrown out of Apple, succeeded with next and Pixar, rejoined apple and made it into one of the first trillion dollar companies. Those who succeed, would do so no matter what.
That should be obvious from Musks own history. He has succeeed at everything he touched.
You rant about Trump’s bankruptcies – yet he is worth about $6B – because when he failed he got up started again and succeeded again.
You rant about South Africa – in the 90’s people succeeded in South AFtrica – now tthey don’t – and everyone regardless of race is worse off.
The country can not even keep the power running.
“Certainly, no Musk enterprise is about rule of law.”
Businesses are not about the rule of law – That is government.
“For did I mention that it was illegal for Elon to be working on Zip2 at all,”
False employment laws do not have anything to do with ownership.
“Understand first that Musk doesn’t believe in or care about education. Not at all. Not even a little bit.”
Zuckerberg dropped out of Harvard.
Jobs dropped out of UCB
Gates Dropped out of Harvard.
MORE PSYCHOBABBLE FROM GIGI!!!
More plagiarism from Girly-Girl.
John Say: can you read? I ask because the information cited above came from Musk’s BIOGRAPHER—-based on extensive research, interviews, and investigations into Musk’s claims and boasting about his alleged “accomplishments”. It is not my work product or opinion, but I have every reason to believe him.
The biographer paints a picture of a spoiled, pampered child of privilege who was a lousy student, who lies a lot about many things, who, indeed, partied a lot, who is a racist and who is motivated by the drive to be filthy rich. He is not interested in preserving western civilization or anything as altruistic as saving taxpayers money. He, like Trump, is mostly motivated by massive tax cuts to benefit the wealthiest, and doesn’t care if he has to take food away from starving babies, fire cancer researchers, air traffic controllers, meat inspectors, medical device researchers or other vital workers to accomplish that goal. Musk was a lousy student who washed out of several prestigious schools. He purchased the ability to bully people who are his betters — like cancer researchers, scientists, doctors, because he craved the power to abuse public servants.
Just like he lies about his education, he has lied about the results of DOGE. Don’t try to sell this creep as someone motivated by noble principles— that’s also a lie.
yesterday, I saw a comment to giggles that said “can you read?” How did I know that today, giggles would copy-cat it?
“”Elon believes in making money””
“It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker, that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest. We address ourselves, not to their humanity but to their self-love, and never talk to them of our own necessities but of their advantages.”
Adam Smith.
The world does not run on charity Gigi.
Charity is the backstop the safety net for those who have failed at life.
People succeed for themsevles – in direct proportion tot he extent they provide other people with something they value.
One of the points of Turley’s article is that Muck became incredibly wealthy by giving those of you on the left something you desparately wanted. A successful Electric Vehicle company.
Musk was your god – far more left wing nuts own Tesla’s today that conservatives.
He was great, he gave you wahat you wanted, he was your hero, until he was not.
Now you have to rewrite your own past.
What Turley is pointing out is that in hating Musk you ultimately have to hate yourself.
YOU made him.
WE know exactly where all of Musks money comes from.
Exchanging value for value – willing buyers paying willing sellors for their product.
I would have read this blow bags posting if I wanted to read war and peace.
OT: why are we e porting our beef, dairy or any food when our prices are so high. I want no exports until our food prices have dropped.
It’s crazy. The farmers can export the surplus. We import our foods while exporting ? Makes zero sense
Just get governemnt completely out of it and sell your products – including beef to who ever you please where ever you please
Wow. There are some really unhinged people out there, Creepy woman “jokes” about ass*ssinating President Trump (wink wink)
https://x.com/libsoftiktok/status/1907117479752519935
Jonathan: I hate to gloat, especially since you are a big supporter of Elon, but wasn’t that a great win for Judge Susan Crawford in the SC judicial election yesterday in Wisconsin? And Crawford won despite, or because of, all the money Musk poured in to campaign to support the MAGA candidate. And it happened in a battleground state where the state is split 50/50 between between the Dems and the GOP. So it’s evident some voters who voted for Trump in the November election now switched sides. Why did they do that? Because a majority of Americans, no matter their party, don’t like the Musk/DJT agenda–firing government workers without cause, gutting agencies that provide valuable services, attacking SS, Medicare and Medicaid, expelling immigrants without die process–and generally taking a chain saw to our Democracy.
Susan Crawford and her supporters yesterday put a line in the sand: “Don’t try to buy our elections and our judges. They are not for sale. And our Democracy is not for sale to the richest person in the world!!”
ONLY LET DEMS BUY ELECTIONS DENNIS SAYS!!
GREAT GOP IDEAS BUY VOTES!!
Dennis
As usual you are disconnected from reality.
– it is disappointing that Crawford won. But it was not unexpected. It was an op-en Democrat seat in an off year election with democrats outspending republicans 3:1
It is hillarious that Crawfard is talking about buying Wisconsin elections – given the enormous amount of left wing billionaire money spent to get her elected – she is totally Owned by the left.
There is a fair amount of evidence that after a threshold more money has little effect on elections – but if you reject that claim – Craford’s election was BOUGHT. Musk did not put a dent in out of state left wing billionaires money spent to get her elected.
That is unfortunate for WI which will continue to have corrupt elections for years to come.
I do not know much about her opponent – it is not my state, and I have no opportunity to vote in WI.
But Crawford herself is exactly what we do NOT want in a judge – hyper partisan and disconnected from the law and constitution.
WI is a state that has a Secret Ballot constitutional requirement – and WI has been violating that since 2020.
And Crawford is worse than the justice she is replacing.
It is a sad day for Wisconsin.
But this was not unexpected.
Just as the Republicans in Florida wining Republican open seats was not unexpected.
The special elections yesterday – changed nothing.
WI’s left wing nut Supreme court – remains left wing.
FL’s house contingent remains republican.
No Dennis this is not evidence that anything has changed. It is actually evidence that NOTHING has changed.
Outside of the Lancaster State Senate race – where I voted for the democrat – because Josh Parson’s is an absolutely horrible person a bad candidate. In lancaster the majority of the GOP power is held by Parson’s and his chronies, but there is a strong minority that hates Parson’s.
He lost because enough republicans voted against Parsons.
Regardless in every other election so far. Republicans have won where republicans won in 2024 and democrats won where democrats win in 2024.
Nothing has changed.
That is actually REALLY BAD for democrats.
This lawfare will eventually peter out – and democrats will lose – and get the blame for delaying what americans wanted.
There is no way that 11-20M illegal immigrants get deported in the next 4 years – at the current rate – we wiill be locky to get rid of all the known criminals by 2028. Regardless support for deportations remains very high.
People do not feel sorry that illegal immigrants are being sent HOME.
People do not feel sorry that radical student demonstrators are being sent HOME.
Support for cutting the federal government is very high.
People do not hate govenrment employees. But they do not fell sorry for people getting 6 figure salaries and 6 months of severance
after 4 years of Biden where it turns out – nearly all the job gains were in government or immigrants.
Peace deals are not happening overnight – but they are happening slowly.
We did not see that for 4 years.
Investment is flooding into the US.
The immediate economy is sending mixed signals and there are problems to be oncerned abut that predate Trump – particularly if we do not cut spending. But even most of the doom sayers are predicting a return to real growth in 2026 – not Biden fake growth. And many predict that sooner. There have not been huge changes in economic indicators – but all the changes have been good if small.
Left wing nuts are whigging out.
But most of the country is ignoring you and the left.
They are also ignoring Trump.
They elected him and they have no interested in the left wing nut daily nonsense.
They want Trump’s platform, but they are not paying attention to the day to day politics.
In other WI election news, voters voted 2:1 to put Voter ID into the Wisconsin Constitution so that the Wisconsin courts could not ignore it. We will see how well that works – The reuirement for secret ballots is in the WI constitution and WI’s courts ignored that too.
There were 5 bond issues that reuired voter approving in WI – four of those failed.
Seems even WI voters do not want more govenrment spending.
I do not know much about the WI supreme court candidates. I do not know if WI voters made the right choice.
But based on the rest of WI election results this election does not seem to indicate some left shift on the part of the electorate.
For whatever reason voters chose Crawford. What little impression I have of her is not good.
As a rule democrats judges abuse power, overreach and go way beyond their jurisdiction.
But rules have exceptions and there is no shortage of bad republican judges – even if democrats are more numerous.
Further – though this is mostly true of older democrat judges outside of big cities, all democrat judges are not bad judges, Just as all republicans are not good judges.
What we do know is that the WI Supreme Court Race does not reflect even a state wide Trend in WI,, much less a nationwide Trend towards democrats.
To the extent that there is anything we can read through the crystal ball, the answer is nothing has changed since Nov. 2024.
But even that conclusion is poor. Off year elections are poor indicators of trends. Odd year special elections are the worst.
The fact that Republicans did well in Florida, and that many conservative issues did well in Wisconsin does not disprove democrats claims the tide is turning. While the single Democrat win in the WI supreme court does not prove the democrats claim that it is.
My argument that nothing has changed is the best conclusion we can draw. But it is still drawn from weak evidence.
Your claim it is meaningful – could be correct. But that does not change that it is speculation based on conflicting evidence from an unreliable indicator.
“I’m Thoroughly Disgusted”: Democrats Attack Musk and Everything that They Once Believed in”
– Professor Turley
_____________________
And the Founders intended for accomplished businessmen to “serve” the nation briefly and then return to their private endeavors.
Government was never intended to be a persistent, oppressive, enslaving dictatorship.
Government was intended to be simple, efficient, restricted, and infinitesimal in order to facilitate the maximal freedom of individuals.
Elected officials were never intended to make a fabulously lucrative career out of public office.
The American restricted-vote republic was never to be a one-man, one-vote “democracy” established for “voters [to] discover that they can vote themselves largesse from the public treasury.”
A few offbeat headlines:
– There was an awkward moment at the White House earlier today when Pete Buttigieg returned from maternity leave
– Cory Booker hosts 24-hour PSA on the dangers of crystal meth
– Actual Nazis are struggling to stand out now that everyone is a Nazi
– British man arrested for praying silently for the person who was stabbing him (full story below)
LONDON — Authorities reported the successful arrest of a 38-year-old man who was caught silently praying for the well-being of the person who was stabbing him. He is currently being held awaiting trial. William Henry Brown was reportedly on holiday from Bristol when he was suddenly jumped by an Islamic migrant assailant with a stabbing knife. But instead of calling the police, he defensively held up his hands while saying a silent prayer for the man who was stabbing him to death.
Though allegedly a silent prayer, witnesses claim Brown was clearly moving his lips. Authorities examined CCTV footage with the aid of a professional lip reader to determine that Brown was indeed praying. “Such public displays of the Christian faith are inherently hostile to our new guests from Pakistan,” Constable Charles Moore said as he slapped handcuffs on the bleeding man. “You people disgust me.” A transcript of the silent prayer has not yet been made public.
“This will not stand in our city,” said London Mayor Sadiq Khan. “Prayer is violent hate speech! That is, unless it’s being blared from a loudspeaker 5 times per day.” According to sources, legal counsel has advised Brown to plead guilty in exchange for a lighter sentence.
“New York state Sen. Pat Fahy (D-Albany) is pledging to bar Musk from direct sales in the state.”
– Professor Turley
_____________________
Americans enjoy the national constitutional freedom of enterprise and markets and the right to private property that may not be denied by any inferior level of government or state.
Only Congress has the power to regulate “Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several states, and with the Indian Tribes;…” with the intent to stabilize and preclude bias or favor.
The singular American failure is the judicial branch, with emphasis on the Supreme Court.
The right to private property is absolute; if the right to private property is not absolute, the right to private property does not exist—it does.
Karl Marx’s first precept is to eliminate private property, which is antithetical and unconstitutional in America.
The right to private property is qualified in and by the 5th Amendment, and no further qualification is possible.
The right to private property is absolute, and the judicial branch is derelict, partial, and unconstitutional pervasively.
Only the owner of private property may “claim and exercise” every aspect, facet, degree, and amount of dominion in exclusion of every other individual or level of government.
It is long past time to correct or impeach and convict a large portion of the judicial branch.
__________________________________________________________________________________________________
“[Private property is] that dominion which one man claims and exercises over the external things of the world, in exclusion of every other individual.”
– James Madison
____________________
5th Amendment
No person shall be…deprived of…property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.
Democrats are fascists and are currently doing “telsa-nacht” to TERRORIST EVERYONE to not be like Elon!
Democrats are TERRORISTS who need to be jailed by the 10,000’s
They are communists who eliminate private property, brutally impose the “dictatorship of the proletariat,” and assure largesse “from each according to his ability, to each according to his needs,” every bit of which is antithetical enslavement and irrefutably unconstitutional.
When things don’t go the Left’s way, they resort to their instincts. Their instincts are always violent, always totalitarianism. Everything Professor Turley rightly describes in today’s article is evidence of that.
Mao Zedong: “We should support whatever the enemy opposes and oppose whatever the enemy supports.”
“An army without culture is a dull-witted army, and a dull-witted army cannot defeat the enemy.”
Vladimir Lenin: “We can and must write in a language which sows among the masses hate, revulsion, and scorn toward those who disagree with us.”
“The way to crush the bourgeoisie is to grind them between the millstones of taxation and inflation.”
Adolf Hitler: “I use emotion for the many and reserve reason for the few.”
“He alone, who owns the youth, gains the future.”
Pol Pot: “I came to join the revolution, not to kill the Cambodian people. Look at me now. Am I a violent person? No. So, as far as my conscience and my mission were concerned there was no problem.”
Josip Broz Tito: “A decade ago young people en masse began declaring themselves as Yugoslavs. It was a form of rising Yugoslav nationalism, which was a reaction to brotherhood and unity and a feeling of belonging to a single socialist self-managing society. This pleased me greatly.”
Kim Jong-un: “Want to know what’s more destructive than a nuclear bomb? Words.”
Eva Peron: “It’s impossible to achieve something without fanaticism.”
This country is at great risk from the Leftists whose desirers are suspect.
George W,
That was very sobering. Thank you for posting that.
Thanks Upstate
George W
I’d like to also salute Mr. Musk with a few quotes worthy of his endeavor to save this great Country, as compared to those I posted previously about tyrannical leftists in America.
Albert Einstein said, “Try not to become a man of success, but rather try to become a man of value.”
Further, though lengthy part of a speech by Theodore Roosevelt, The Sorbonne, Paris, France April 1910:
“It is not the critic who counts; not the man
who points out how the strong man stumbles, or
where the doer of deeds could have done them better.
The credit belongs to the man whose face
is marred by dust and sweat and blood; one who
strives valiantly, who errs, and comes short again
and again, because there is no effort without error
and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do
the deeds: who knows the great enthusiasms, the
great devotions, who spends himself in a worthy
cause, who at the best knows in the end the triumph
of high achievement, and who at the worst, if
fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his
place shall never with those cold and timid souls
who know neither victory nor defeat.”
JT, you are wrong when saying,
“What is most striking, however, is how Democrats have torched their core beliefs to pursue a scorched Earth campaign against Musk.”
Democrats have only one core belief, Control of the people so they can stay in power.
As Carville says “Our job is to win”
Democrats thoroughly kicked Musk’s ass in Wisconsin–his $20 million gambit to purchase the Supreme Court seat fell through–and, by extension, voters sent a message of rejection to Trump and allowing Musk to take a sledgehammer to the federal government. So does Turley write a thoughtful piece about the implications of this clear message, suggesting, perhaps that Republicans might want to change course? Of course not. Like the purchased MAGA pundit he is, he goes on the attack against Democrats, falsely accusing them of promoting violence and abandoning their core values. Trump and Republicans aren’t even slow learners–they just double down, which is fine with me–they’ll be in the rear view mirror soon enough. I’m surprised that Turley didn’t try to spin the measure about voter ID into some kind of “more important” result like some Republicans have tried to do–it was a relative nothingburger because Wisconsin already requires photo ID to vote–this measure just made it harder for a court to strike it down, that’s all.
Rabble Rabble Rabble Rabble Rabble!!
PSYCOBABBLE!! FROM GIGI!
Gigi: usually you are amusing. Sometimes, quite laughable. But now you have outdone yourself. Please please pretty please, try to avoid getting all your information from those left-wing rags, and/or coming to your conclusions by conglomerating them.
Musk did NOT spend $20 million on the Wisc. SC. He DID contribute millions to two Republican/conservative PACS, –and THEY backed SEVERAL candidates and THEY campaigned against Crawford (the Democrats’ candidate).
Forbes magazine (not your left-wing rags) says that Crawford’s campaign spent WAY MORE than the Republican candidate, and Crawford enjoyed contributions from SEVERAL Billionaires.
Since you never cite your sources, I return the same. Look up Forbes’ reporting yourself. But I will leave you with this.
https://x.com/amuse/status/1907450012792930679
–And try to be a little more truthful in the future.
I notice you often resort to anonymous posts (like today). We know who you are, by the ridiculous comments.
Mary ann.