Is Elon Musk just trying to make electric vehicles safe for climate crisis-denying conservatives?
In a couple words, probably not.
Elon Musk has been weird. And not just weird like Kamala Harris supporters are labeling white Christian nationalists[1]—which is plenty weird enough—but weird weird, easily weird enough that I am reluctant to do business with any of his companies simply because I prefer to deal with grown-ups.
I mean, seriously, nuking Mars?[2] As he took over Twitter and turned into a white Christian nationalist platform now called ‘X,’ I wondered if perhaps he was hoping to make Tesla cool for conservatives, if this, somehow, was his plan.
And I guess there’s anecdotal evidence in support: “[Jarret] Fink, who identifies as an independent and plans to vote for Trump, thinks Musk’s endorsement of the former president can inspire conservatives to shift from gas-powered cars to electric ones. ‘I think now that Elon Musk has an appeal to conservatives … this is giving them that carrot to [say], “Well, my buddy bought one, and he’s not a liberal,”’ Fink said.”[3]
After all, it’s been toxic, presumably white Christian males who’ve been parking their internal combustion engine (ICE) vehicles in electric vehicle (EV) charging spots (“ICEing”), making them unusable for EV owners. It’s been toxic, presumably right-wing people (probably mostly male) who’ve been modifying their monster pickup trucks[4] to belch black smoke (“roll coal”) at hybrids and EVs.[5] And so, with his interest in Tesla, it would make sense for Musk to seek to ameliorate anti-EV sentiment.
And he did get Donald Trump to say, “I am for electric cars. I have to be. Elon endorsed me very strongly.”[6] But it’s increasingly difficult to believe that Musk has any real plan for the social network formerly known as Twitter as he runs afoul of the European Union’s free speech rules (which, unlike in the U.S., include a provision that people are, get this, responsible for what they say).[7]
If my hypothesis is true, and I increasingly doubt that it is, it’s backfiring. To borrow one of Trump’s non-words, “bigly.” According to theWashington Post, just as competition heats up between producers in a softening electric vehicle market, “[d]rivers who have bought or considered buying Tesla vehicles are now eyeing EVs from competitors, partially because of Musk’s polarizing persona or recent endorsement of former president Donald Trump’s 2024 campaign.”[8] Oops.
[1] Meg Kinnard, “Why Harris and Democrats keep calling Trump and Vance ‘weird,’” Associated Press, July 31, 2024, https://apnews.com/article/kamala-harris-trump-vance-weird-c54d506d1f533ee7aa455f7b500322c5
[2] Mike Wall, “Elon Musk Floats 'Nuke Mars' Idea Again (He Has T-Shirts),” Space, August 17, 2019, https://www.space.com/elon-musk-nuke-mars-terraforming.html
[3] Lisa Bonos, “Elon Musk’s embrace of Trump is turning off these Tesla lovers,” Washington Post, August 10, 2024, https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2024/08/10/musk-tesla-trump-fans/
[4] Angie Schmitt, “What Happened to Pickup Trucks?” CityLab, March 11, 2021, https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-03-11/the-dangerous-rise-of-the-supersized-pickup-truck
[5] David Weigel, “Rolling Coal,” Slate, July 3, 2014, https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2014/07/rolling-coal-conservatives-who-show-their-annoyance-with-liberals-obama-and-the-epa-by-blowing-black-smoke-from-their-trucks.html
[6] Donald Trump, quoted in Lisa Bonos, “Elon Musk’s embrace of Trump is turning off these Tesla lovers,” Washington Post, August 10, 2024, https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2024/08/10/musk-tesla-trump-fans/
[7] Natasha Lomas, “EU warns X over illegal content risks. Musk replies with Tropic Thunder insult meme,” TechCrunch, August 12, 2024, https://techcrunch.com/2024/08/13/eu-warns-x-over-illegal-content-risks-musk-replies-with-tropic-thunder-insult-meme/
[8] Lisa Bonos, “Elon Musk’s embrace of Trump is turning off these Tesla lovers,” Washington Post, August 10, 2024, https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2024/08/10/musk-tesla-trump-fans/