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Elon Musk Knows How to Fight the Federal Government
Regulators despise him. Stakeholders love him. Fans of space exploration laud him. And innovators—well, it depends on whether you see electric cars as an inevitable part of the future, or an irresponsible and impractical development.
Very few people are indifferent to the workings of Elon Musk.
The main reason I want to celebrate Elon Musk is that he isn’t afraid of anyone, at least not in the federal government. He has repeatedly pushed back on, insulted, ignored, and refused to comply with federal regulators. Some people would say that he can afford to be incorrigible with his remarkable ventures, wealth, and success. On the other hand, there are many corporate CEOs who have caved into regulators who mainly seem to want to flex their muscles, exert stifling control, and make life difficult for risk-takers.
Musk has scuffled with the National Transportation Safety Board, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, the Federal Aviation Administration, the Security and Exchange Commission, the National Labor Relations Board, and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration. We could debate whether these agencies have had legitimate concerns, but Musk is making a critical point: you’d better have good reasons for slowing him down or he will stonewall, criticize or ignore requests.
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Elon Musk sets an outstanding example for corporate America to stand up to totalitarian forces and not to cave into the federal government. He is an iconoclast; his politics are all over the place. But he is very clear on his overall mission: to break boundaries and push ahead with every bit of his being—and to hell with the powers-that-be.
As we watch corporations supposedly stand up for the American people, we choke at their duplicity, ignorance, and disingenuousness. They don’t even care for their shareholders anymore; their priorities are virtue signaling, and as long as the Left dictates their agenda, they will foolishly comply. As businessmen, these CEOs aren’t obligated to defend America, but they are naïve enough to believe that if they walk in lockstep with the Left, they will be safe from criticism and retribution.
They have no clue that when the Left has used and abused them, those CEOs will be chewed up and spit out.
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Elon Musk is also sending a message to everyday Americans, those of us who live ordinary lives and might think we have no power to make a difference.
We are lying to ourselves.
Each of us has an obligation—to our country, our communities, our families, and friends—to protest the lies and misrepresentations of the Left. We must support each other in taking a stand, for speaking out and refusing to bow to the arrogant and deceitful Left. More and more we are realizing that the consequences we might face if we speak out are inconsequential, compared to what we have to lose as a people.
May we have just an ounce of the boldness that Elon Musk demonstrates every day, and speak out against tyranny and oppression.
Published in Domestic Policy
I’m not sure that’s true. I readily admit that he’s selling more cars because of them. But I doubt someone who is buying an $80,000 car is bothered much if there’s even a $7,000 tax incentive (which are gone now, as I understand it).
We as a nation, through our elected representative, for better or worse (worse in my book), made the laws to encourage that type of investment.
Gasoline, with its clunky carburetor and later fuel injection, is a fairly bad means to fuel a car. Natural gas or propane make a lot more sense. But with a hundred years of tweaking the mechanism of adapting gasoline to an engine, it’s gotten pretty darned efficient. To compete with that efficiency and the base of gas stations, etc., it makes sense to provide subsidies (if you wrongly believe that switching to electric cars is in the vital interest of the nation, and I don’t).
When they invented the forward pass in football, was it the coach’s fault if he designed plays using the new rule?
Were the rest of us paying him extra to do that?
I didn’t say that he draws a government paycheck at the end of every month. But that — in my estimation — he functions as, and is supported as, and is considered as, and is privy too the same decision-making channels as an unofficial but accepted part of the government: much like google, facebook, and twitter, but more so; and he almost exclusively sells his product to the government, sort of like the corporations of the military industrial complex. The MIC, functionally and very realistically is the government as well.
He won by arguing that “pedo-guy” literally meant “creepy old man”, and not pedophile guy. Money and power and being an accepted part of the government works wonders.
I think your understanding of the MIC is flawed. SpaceX has been the interloper that has severely damaged the MIC.
To be fair, he is a creepy old man.