From Iron man to Icarus - how Musk's popularity plunged deeper than the Mariana trench

It is a sunny day in the 1980’s Pretoria, South Africa. In the local school, a young, white boy lies on the floor, covering his head with his hands as the older boys continue beating him. After some time, someone finally calls an ambulance, and he is rushed to the hospital where he has to stay until he has recovered from being nearly beaten to death. Sadly, the incident did not surprise him, he was used to the constant bullying and escaped more and more into his Sci-fi novels and comic books. One day, he says to himself, I will be like them. An Inventor, revolutionizing the world, a hero who is celebrated for his fight against injustice. He starts holding his ground, calling out his white classmates when they smear racist slurs on the cafeteria walls, even though it worsens the bullying. With twelve, he sells his first game to a magazine for $500. At 17 he leaves Africa and enrols in Queen’s University in Ontario, studies there for two years, before he gets a scholarship for the UPenn and graduates in Physics and Economics. In 2002, he sells his Company PayPal to eBay for $1.5 Billion and uses the money to found SpaceX and fund a start-up called Tesla. He has finally made it! He is an inventor, an entrepreneur and people started seeing him as a hero who will make space travel available for anybody! People call him the “real-life Tony Stark” only with an assuredly moral domain instead of selling weapons like the Marvel Hero did. His brand: "Saviour of the human race". By now, you probably guessed that the little, bullied boy is Elon Reeve Musk.

He was incredibly popular, especially with environmental protecting liberals. His revolutionizing electronic car, the Tesla, has become the symbol of “liberal do-goodery” and many eco-conscious people buy it just for this reason. He initially donates exclusively to the Democratic Party, supporting political figures like Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, which makes perfect sense as he is one of the largest purveyors of renewable energy tech world-wide. His economic values, his striving towards making the world a better place, align naturally with the values of liberals and the Democratic party.

The younger generations celebrate him after he starred as a guest in PewDiePie’s Meme-review on YouTube in 2019. He starts tweeting memes daily, editing himself on the body of The Rock and replying to his young followers in the comment section. He turns into a Meme lord, despite being forty-eight years old. In 2021, The Times declares him the person of the year, the New York Post characterises him as “gloriously capitalistic [and] irreverent” and as “the hero we need today”. Forty years after nearly being beaten to death, he became one of the characters he read about as a child. He is the richest man in the world and an inspiration for many aspiring engineers and entrepreneurs. And I admit, I shared their opinions of him, to me he was simple ‘the Tesla guy’ who occasionally popped-up as a new, funny meme on my Instagram feed. But now, only a year after his peak, he is on Icarus-like decent worse than any other he had before.

See, Musk has had controversies before, only that the public forgot and forgave them shortly after they happened. The first backlash comes, as he spreads a massive amount of misinformation on the Coronavirus during the course of 2020. From stating that the panic around the deadly virus is over the top, to alleging politicians of publishing enlarged numbers of death, and even suggesting that people should consider the anti-malaria drug chloroquine to battle COVID. This last suggestion was also made by Donald Trump and Laura Ingraham and resulted in the death of at least one person.

It was during this period, that he began to lean more to the right-winged political side for example by challenging his followers to “Take the red pill”. The red pill is a reference to the matrix movie and taking it frees the hero, Neo, “from a dream-world imposed on humanity and let him see reality”. A reference which is now a metaphor often used by right-winged conspiracy theorists. Many republicans, including Ivanka Trump, reply with “Taken” and congratulate him on finally seeing the truth.

 But he did not stop there and went so far as to call the lockdown “fascist”. He believed the safety measures taken by the government desperately trying to slow down the exploding death rates and attempting to relieve the collapsing health-system are “not Democratic. This is not Freedom. Give people back their goddamn freedom.”. The fuss around him died down eventually after he announced in 2021 that he believes in the COVID vaccine and in vaccines in general. A tweet which was received with mixed emotions. Especially Trump-supporters and republicans reacted negatively, disagreeing with his opinion on it being safe or asking if he was being blackmailed or even kidnapped. But alas, all was forgotten, until he created his latest and biggest controversy.

In February of 2022, he buys 9.2% of the Twitter shares, a purchase which makes him the biggest shareholder of the company. Soon after the news came out, he started posting polls on Twitter and rambles about ideas on how to improve the platform. While some people are concerned about his purchase and the consequential influence over the social media company, many celebrate him, calling him the next CEO of Twitter and start requesting changes from him. The people celebrating him are once again mostly republican, like the republican congressional candidate Lavern Spicer which even goes so far as to thank Musk under his first tweet after buying the shares for “helping to save western civilization”. The board of Twitter itself is not as ecstatic as his followers and feels threatened by the multi-billionaire. As a result, they create a deal: Musk gets appointed to the board if he agrees to not buy more than 15% of the Twitter shares. Elon does agree and on the 5th of April, Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal announces, that he will officially join the board four days later.

Elon replies very optimistic, stating that he is “Looking forward to working with Parag & Twitter board to make significant improvements to Twitter in coming months!”. The replies to both tweets are mixed and show a clear separation. While some people simply ask him to install an edit button, the republican followers get louder and many ask him to unban Trump from Twitter, fire Parag and praise him for bringing back free speech to the platform. The other side is concerned about his purchase and look migrate to other platforms such as Tumblr.

But his approval was only a façade that crumbles as he declares on the day of his appointment, that he will no longer join the board. Instead, he publicly ponders in a tweet whether Twitter is dying. And maybe his pondering, as well as many republicans replying it is due to ‘censorship’, resulted in the conclusion, that only he can be the hero that saves Twitter because he makes his first offer to purchase it on the 14th of April. He is willing to pay $43 billion, which later turns into $44 billion, to take the company private. The Twitter board, in an attempt to prevent him from buying the company, turns to the poison pill strategy but without success. After Twitter accepts the offer, he pulls back and pauses negotiations, claiming that Twitter is withholding regarding the number of spam accounts on their platform. Twitter sues Musk, alleging him not only of breaching their contract which would cost him a whopping $1 billion if the judge ruled for Twitter, as well as causing major damage to the company’s internal structure and value. Their complaint criticises how “Musk apparently believes that he — unlike every other party subject to Delaware contract law — is free to change his mind, trash the company, disrupt its operations, destroy stockholder value, and walk away”. Looks like someone is unpopular at the Twitter headquarters. His reaction is as expected. He counter-sues the company under the claims that “[the key metrics] contain numerous, material misrepresentations or omissions that distort Twitter’s value”. This game of cat and mouse continues for three more months, until he eventually buys the company in October. And whilst legal experts hypothesis that he did it because it is very hard to break a merging agreement and the first hearing did not sound good for Musk and his legal team, 2.4 million users liked his first tweet after finally going through with the merge.

The political direction in his comment section is now unmistakably right-winged, with Councilwoman Inna Vernikov thanking him “for making sure the USA does not turn into USSR”. Many advocate his role as the hero, saving the free speech on Twitter and asking him to reinstate accounts which have been banned for hate-speech and spreading of misinformation in the past. But where did all this talk about Twitter no longer supporting ‘free speech’ and censoring its users come from anyway?

It all started when the platform rewrote its rule after realising that “so-called free speech can actually be used as a weapon to silence the vulnerable and dispossessed” and that sometimes you must censor your users in order to maintain your position as a platform for free discourse. Thus, speech inciting violence against people “on the basis of race, ethnicity, national origin, religion, sexual orientation, gender, gender identity, age, or disability” were banned. But the ‘absolutely unjustified’ censorship (which is apparently enough to turn the USA into the USSR) does not stop there. In  March of 2021, Twitter announces that they “will start labelling misleading tweets about COVID vaccines and ban users who continue to spread such misinformation” and further introduced a “strike system” which “will gradually escalate to a permanent ban after the fifth offending tweet”.

To conclude the debate, the republican users of Twitter miss their old free speech and have found in the now openly republican Musk the perfect hero to safe them from being banned for spreading misinformation on a deadly virus or making racist and offensive tweets.

Because the new Twitter owner conveniently does it himself!

And he does not disappoint their expectations. The rules against spreading misinformation on the ever-killing virus are taken down in November of 2022, making the CEO once again highly unpopular with public health officials and the people who fought at the front lines during the pandemic. But his quest for ‘free speech’, instating himself even more as the new republican social-media leader, and garnering even more outrage and unpopularity amongst non-republicans is not yet completed. On Jan. 6, the second anniversary of the attack on the U.S. Capitol, he reinstates Micheal Flynn who is “one of the most prominent supporters of false claims that [the election] had been stolen by Biden”. He is additionally a prominent believer of the Trump QAnon conspiracy theory and has called Ukraine’s president Zelensky a “Dangerous fool” whilst strongly praising Putin and his Security Council Deputy Chairman for being “bold leaders who have everything at stake in terms of protecting their country”. Yes, protecting their country, because apparently Russia is now the endangered country and not Ukraine, the country they invaded. But everything for free speech, I guess. Musk himself seems to be on Russia’s side, tweeting a ‘suggestion’ on how to end the war which align with Russia’s own requests

Now, Musk has made a 180 degree transformation and turned from a symbol for the eco-conscious democrat into a full-fletched republican who allows misinformation and reinstates very controversial public figures. However, while he has a strong base of right-wing followers, the public criticism increases steadily, and he has now successfully managed to turn Ukrainian officials and political commentators against him.

During the November of 2022, Musk launched the $8-blue-verification, the inevitable wave of impersonation made him now also unpopular amongst companies and stars who had fallen victim to the predicted havoc.  But there is one group in his orbit that we have not yet looked at: his employees. Or should I in Twitters case rather say ex-employees? After his purchase, he not only fired the former CEO but also 3700 employees, more than half of the entire company. Even more followed after his famous hardcore-email, and the remaining employees are now begging for toilet paper as the stench from the bathrooms is flooding the offices, due to recent financial cuts.

Unfortunately though, the mistreatment of his employees is anything but new. In February of 2022, Tesla was sued after hundreds of complaints were filed by its employees due to experiencing racism and systematic harassment against black workers. Racist graffiti could be found all around the building and one worker “heard 50 to 100 racial slurs a day”. Soon after, investor Solomon Chau files a lawsuit because Musk and his executive directors at Tesla breached “fiduciary duty by enabling a toxic work environment”. He is reported to have a habit of “blowing up at those beneath him”, his humiliating and anger-driven behaviour has even become so common, that Executives would joke how “Musk would devour a worker by erupting at them in anger” instead of eating food. After Tesla executive Peter Rawlinson quit, like because of these temper tantrums, another executive failed to bring him back and was thus fired by Musk.

Somehow Musk even avoided the repercussions of the #MeToo movement as several women sued Tesla for sexual harassment without consequences at the workplace. Male workers took pictures of a women’s backside, sharing it with the rest of the workforce. Female employees were objectified on a daily basis, or touched by male co-workers who then lied about their position to dissuade them from reporting the harassment. But apparently they are all just following their CEO, given that Musk exposed himself to a flight attendant in 2016, asking her for an erotic massage in exchange for buying her a horse, leaving the flight attendant traumatized. After declining the generous offer, he cuts back her shifts and later proceeds to pay her $250.000 to silence her. He now calls the claims wild and a “concerted effort to silence him”.

And while Media psychologist Jo Groeble speculates that his image could recover, I am of the firm belief and sincerly hope that it won’t. After all this, you cannot help but wonder, if Musk looks back on his childhood and believes that the small, bullied, and beaten boy who fiercely fought against racism, would have been proud of the person he is now. What do you think?  

TL;DR: In the name of 'free speech', Musk legalizes hate-speech and misinformation on Twitter and reinstates highly dangerous political figures on the anniversary of the tragedy which they promoted. All whilst banning journalists, politicians and anti-fascist accounts/organizations because they disagree with his opinions. Apparently, free speech only applies to people who share his opinion. Throwing temper-tantrums and erupting at workers is just as normal as inciting a toxic work-environment, racism, and sexual harassment. In the span of a year, he has made himself unpopular with his employees, democrats, feminists, people of colour, yes, even entire countries if we take a look at Ukraine.

We the People – are asked to pay 138.000$ to light a tree

Jill Biden recently unveiled the Christmas decorations she chose for the white House. The theme: We the People. Her decorations include “over 83,615 holiday lights, 77 Christmas trees, 25 wreaths, and one very large gingerbread house (with 40 pounds of icing alone)”, but the most important features are handwritten recipes from the 150 volunteers who decorated the house, renderings of the official birds from all 57 states, territories, and the District of Columbia, as well as ornaments containing self-portraits of students from across the country.

In theory a really nice concept. But over two years of living through a pandemic left countless families in the US below the poverty rate. And while the white house did not share how much the decorations of this year had cost exactly, one can only imagine how much it is, if it costs 138.000$ to light a single tree. And while this is 22.000§ cheaper than the lighting by Trump in 2019 (“who gives a fuck about the Christmas stuff and decorations”), it still seems like bitter irony. Especially in combination with Bidens explanation on why the tree lighting is so important: the evergreen tree "reminds us that even in the coldest, darkest days of winter that life and abundance will return."

And boy oh boy did he fulfil that abundance thing! I bet all of the families struggling to put food on their table feel much better now!

Oh, and in case you want to see now what 138.000$ look like, here you go:

(underwhelming, I know)

I bet, winning four World Cups was easier than this!

While the male US soccer team set off to play in Qatar, a country which sentences women to whippings and seven years of prison if they don’t marry their rapist because its unmarried sex, while the man doesn’t get prosecuted because there is no legal evidence that it was a rape, the female US soccer team wins once again. Not their fifth world cup, but a legal battle against US soccer, suing them for gender biased, and unequal payment. And they are completely right!

For comparison: the male soccer team lost in the Round of 16 in the 2014 World Cup and split $5.38 million in performance bonuses. And they didn’t even qualify for the world cup in 2018. The female soccer team WON the 2015 World Cup and shared a bonus of $1.73 million. Now before some big brain comes along arguing: BuT thE wOmEN hAve LeSs vIewERs!! Wrong! The Women’s World Cup Final in 2019 observed a 22% US viewership boost, compared to the 2018 Men’s Final. Making it the most watched soccer match on English language television, men’s or women. The second most watched game, btw, is the 2015 Women’s World Cup final.

Still, it took four won World Cups and a six-year-legal battle to finally get paid the equal amount and force USSF to treat them as equals with the male team, after the organization previously stated, that they do “not believe the women even deserve to be paid equally” (Molly Levinson).

This court ruling makes the US soccer teams the first to be equally paid, but hopefully not the last.

Politician or Gun-Influencer? A guessing-game brought to you by literally every Republican social-media account

People are shocked about the attack on Paul Pelosi and wonder how it could get this far. But honestly, after a bit of research I am merely surprised that it only happened now and not earlier. You only need to take one look at the social media accounts of Republican politicians, and you have your answer.

On the 26th of October 2022, only two days before the attack on Paul Pelosi, Tom Emmer, the U.S. Representative from Minnesota's 6th Congressional District, posted a tweet. The tweet which you can see at the beginning of this post.

Yes, I am as disgusted as you right now, but it gets even worse. When asked during an Interview he said it “wasn’t an ad” and continued with shifting the blame by saying that nobody asked democrat Politicians when Sanders-Supporter Hodgkinson opened fire on Republican lawmakers. Are you seeing a valid argument and answer to the interviewer’s question here? Yah, me neither.

But Emmer is not the only one posting ads with guns used against Pelosi’s work. US House Candidate Mike Collins shoots and then sets fire to a stack of papers titled “Nancy Pelosi’s plans for America” whilst playing recordings of her in the background. Tagged with #SaveAmerica.

US Senate candidate Blake Masters has a weekly post in which he shows his gun collection, tagging the products and says that the highly dangerous ‘ghost guns’ are “very legal & very cool” and that he recently built some himself. You ever asked yourself what becomes of the people from high school who thought that bullying is cool? Here you have your answer!

According to the NYT over 100 TV ads featured a gun this year.

Seems like the Republican views on what “cool” means, are just as upside down as Emmer in his Zoom call. Maybe a person who is too old use a simple Computer program shouldn’t use a gun and certainly not be a politician!

Grandmother's Recipe for a Racist Shitstorm

Ingredients:

1 talented BLACK artist, which has received over a decade of professional education in their field

1 old artefact whose existence was unknown to 99% of the US population (the shitstorm would get extra fluffy if it belonged to a president whose wealth was created by owning a slave plantation, but it’ll work even if it's just any white man)

A dash of “ethnic movement” (to quote the glorious legally blonde musical here)

Two dozen unprogressive, white US citizens who missed the memo of Galileo that the sun is the centre of the solar system and not them, which leads them to believe that every slightly progressive action was performed just to spite them

One cup of media attention

Three tablespoons of the support of progressive people

Instructions:

Combine the professionally trained artist with the old artefact that they have been trained for and add the dash of ethnic movement, as well as the media attention.

Carefully lift the two-dozen unprogressive, white US citizens under the mixture

Now add the tablespoons of support. This will react with the citizens and create a beautiful big and fluffy shitstorm

Transfer the batter into a 30-centimetre diameter Bundt pan

Place in the oven at 180°C and bake for roughly 30-45, until the top has become golden brown

Serve while still slightly hot and I can only recommend on offering it with a side of popcorn and a glass (or bottle) of red wine to help it go down more smoothly.

This recipe will yield roughly one month worth of heated, racist twitter posts by white politicians such as comparing the performance with taking “a dump on the American flag." (James Bradley, currently running for US Senate in California), as well as two weeks’ worth of memes.

Please share your pictures in the comment section, I’d love to see how your shitstorm turned out!😊

# baking # yummy

How Walker thinks that people should protect Black lives:

Studies show that women in Georgia are twice as likely to die due to lacking care during or after pregnancy. And, to make it even worse, black women in Georgia are three times more likely than the average white woman in the US!

Warnock supports the pro-choice movement and is developing a bill to address maternal mortality in Georgia to tackle the increase death rates.

And what is Walker’s reaction to that: “Mr. Senator, Georgia has more Black babies aborted than anything. So, if Black lives matter, why are you not protecting those babies? And instead of aborting those black babies why are you not baptising them.”

Excuse me, but what the fu*k? What about the black women who are dying because of complicated pregnancies and lack of medical care? An issue he did not address during this debate, btw.

Geez, I would like to see the reactions of those black, female babies who got ‘saved’ by Walker when they find out that their Senator protected them more when they were a lump of cells, than when they are grown-up women. But hey, at least they got baptised!

Nah, I’d much rather take Warnock’s stand: Stop crowing the OB-GYN’s patient room with (almost exclusively male!) politicians! It is not their life. And it is not their choice to make, either!

"By all rights, I shouldn't be here today. I should be dead – six foot under in a wooden box."

Sir Elton John just received the National Humanities Medal, mere months after being made a Companion of Honour by Charles III, due to his incredible effort in fighting against AIDS. But how exactly does he battle the deadly disease with such success?

In 1992, Elton established the Elton John AIDS Foundation, two years after his friend Ryan White died of the disease. He is further of the belief, that he himself should have contracted and died from it in the 1980s because of his Cocaine-addiction.

Ever since, his foundation has raised Millions of pounds, provided palliative care in Africa to support 800.000 people with AIDS to die with dignity, helped 300.000 children orphaned by AIDS, funds HIV testing for 20M people and links 250.000 to safe medication, and launches a new $10M LGBT fund to help gay men in Africa.

But most importantly, he fights the stigma surrounding the disease stressing that "All it takes is a bit more funding and a bit more understanding. All it takes is a dialogue". Because he believes that "the AIDS disease is caused by a virus, but the AIDS epidemic is not. The AIDS epidemic is fuelled by stigma, violence and indifference."

This extraordinary effort explains why he has been awarded seven honourable awards over the past 30 years, as well as, having been knighted by Queen Elisabeth in 1998. What an incredible and compassionate man!

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