How the left fell out of love with Elon Musk
Musk's pivot to MAGA turned him into a lightning rod for tribal fury. What happened?
There was a time when Elon Musk was the undisputed golden boy of the progressive mainstream — a visionary whose name conjured images of a clean, green electric future and condos on Mars. It may seem like a distant memory, but just a decade ago, The Guardian called him "the new It Boy of Silicon Valley," MIT Technology Review branded him Silicon Valley’s leading celebrity, and a 2016 survey showed nearly a quarter of startup founders admired him most — far ahead of Jeff Bezos at just 10%.
That warm honeymoon glow made owning a Tesla the choice move for progressives who wanted to say “I care about the planet” and look good doing it. But today, those same vehicles have become rolling targets for arson, vandalism, and the occasional bullet. To keep from being branded “Nazi cars,” Tesla owners are plastering their vehicles with stickers that say ‘Anti Elon Tesla Club,’ and ‘I bought this before I knew he was crazy.’
The contrast is jarring, and it raises a puzzling question: how did the left’s darling turn into their villain — especially when his core ideas have barely shifted? For decades, Musk has been fixated on certain technologies he believes could reshape history: the internet, sustainable energy, space exploration (especially permanent life beyond Earth), artificial intelligence, and human genetic reprogramming. None of that seems to have changed.
So why was he so revered then, and so reviled now?
As the world staggered out of the Great Financial Crisis in the early 2010s, people were disillusioned with old crusty systems and starving for bold ideas. Elon Musk’s ideas were a lifeline to a brighter future that outshone the stagnant reality. Tesla wasn’t just a car; it was a rebellion against the ‘smartest guys in the room’ at Enron and Big Oil. SpaceX wasn’t just rockets; it was a ticket off an overheating and soon unlivable planet. To progressive thinkers, even Musk’s wilder pitches — like tweaking our DNA — carried an exciting sheen of possibility.
But now, the veil has lifted. By pivoting to Donald Trump and wearing brash libertarianism on his sleeve, Musk flipped the script. Suddenly, the man who had cashed in handsomely on government subsidies and public contracts is railing against big government and, worse than anything, cozying up to the orange menace progressives loathe most.
Musk has always been a pragmatist, not a crusader. His loyalty is to his vision and his empire. A decade ago, when his vision aligned with progressive hopes, his silence on politics let them fill in the gaps. Now, his moves — backing Trump, buying Twitter, pushing “free-speech absolutism” — clash with the progressive worldview. The ideas haven’t changed, but the context has. Sustainable energy feels less noble when it’s tied to a guy they see as a tech-bro megalomaniac. Space exploration loses its luster when it’s a billionaire’s vanity project. AI and genetic tinkering, once a futuristic dream, seem creepy in the hands of someone they distrust.
Tesla, once the premier eco-badge of honor, has today become a symbol of betrayal, booed in Mardi Gras parades and torched on dealer lots. Arson and vandalism are a primal howl from people who feel unheard. They’re not just mad at Musk; they’re mad at a world that is now devoid of meaning.
Torching a Tesla might feel like defiance, but it’s a hollow gesture. The message these folks are sending is: ‘you’re not listening, so we’ll make you.’ In many ways, it echoes Luigi Mangione’s alleged murder of a health insurance CEO over denied care — a strike at a symbol that embodies the system, and not the system itself.
The irony is that the personal target of their anger has been made so rich by their fawning and subsidies that the hurt they’re causing him is the equivalent of losing a penny in the couch cushions. A cynic might even say, at a time when electric vehicle sales are slumping, the convenient torching of unsold Teslas gives the company a source of revenue from the insurance claims at full retail value — something the very people doing the torching will see reflected in their next auto insurance rate hike, no doubt. What most people don’t understand is: when you have as much money as Musk, you don’t work for the system, the system works for you.
Another thing protestors miscalculate is that in business, there are no allegiances, except to ‘do what’s best for the company,’ to quote the movie Office Space. Musk, in this case, is the company — looking out for number one is what he does best. A cynic might once again argue having babies with random women is what Musk does second best.
So why doesn’t he put a stop to the Tesla dealership destruction? He could hire private security, lock down sales lots, make it a non-issue in about three minutes. The fact that he hasn’t done so hints at a calculated move. Chaos keeps him relevant and he loves the attention. It riles his new base — those who see him as a rebel against the woke elite — while stoking his old foes. A few charred cars? That’s just fuel for the Musk show, a low-cost drama for a man who thrives in the spotlight.
Musk’s journey from progressive icon to tribal lightning rod isn’t necessarily about a man who changed — it’s about a world that did. A decade ago, his unshakable focus on futuristic technologies mirrored America’s hunger for hope; today, it clashes with our fractured reality. Tesla-bashing reflects a deeper malaise — a society so splintered that we burn symbols rather than find solutions.
Musk, meanwhile, rides the chaos, his empire unscathed, his spotlight undimmed, his fortune (and family) growing ever larger. Whether he’s a visionary or a villain depends on where you stand, but one thing’s clear: the Musk show thrives on our division. So then it begs the question: why are we all still watching this reality show?
Why are we all still watching this reality show? What a question, but to me it's not clear how not to watch. You'd have to be isolated from media... Perhaps the question should be: Why is everyone so fixated and divided on these issues?
The burning of Teslas, though futile to sway the despised Musk,, is maybe a sign, as you point out, of societies' fracture and chaos rising. It shows that symbolism and ideology are more important to many of the disillusioned. It's irrational and immature because it does nothing to solve the problem they perceive.
I think the chaos is the result of many years of intense conditioning and propaganda that became institutionalized and driven by greed and profit. Now that everyone has a smartphone surveilling them, manipulating them, it's so much more intense.
The only way forward that I can see is to embrace critical thinking, teach it, in or out of school, and allow it to flourish. Journalism is, if not dead, very controlled and censorship abounds. So we need to change that, which ironically Musk played a role in, with twitter.
We've allowed manipulation and coercion for so long, entrenched it, monetized it. It's business as usual... slowly crumbling.
Money is like a river, it has great momentum and will find it's way to the sea.
I want make one thing clear. That old codger who got caught keying a Tesla in San Jose. He’s not a boomer. He’s a moron who happens to be a boomer 🤠👍