Woe is M-Elon

The world's richest man is embarking on a public victimhood tour.

As Elon Musk continues to take a (literal) chainsaw to the federal government, continues to fire veterans, continues to endanger critical healthcare and food assistance programs, Tesla dealerships and cars have become targets for vandals looking to express their dissatisfaction. Which of course gives Elon Musk the opportunity to occupy a space that seems increasingly comfortable for the world’s wealthiest and most powerful men: victimhood.

He put that on full display during his conversation with victim-whisperer, Sean Hannity:

I’m certainly not going to advocate for violence against anyone or anything. That much goes without saying. But what I thought was so striking about this clip is Musk claiming that he thought the left was supposed to be the party of empathy and caring.

That comment perfectly distills the asymmetry in our politics. The left is “supposed to be” the party of empathy and caring, and so that’s the standard it’s expected to live up to. The right is not “supposed to be” the party of empathy and caring, and so when its leader incites an insurrection at the US Capitol, wherein its rioters are seeking to hang Mike Pence and assassinate Nancy Pelosi, that’s all well and good because it meets our expectations. If you’ve struggled with the fact that Republicans are graded on a curve, it’s because they’ve successfully lowered our expectations to such a degree that even their most depraved behavior comes as no surprise. But if a Democrat were to do even a fraction of what Republicans do, they receive the requisite scolding.

For example, Joe Biden pardoning Hunter (to preclude a potentially weaponized DOJ from targeting his son) was treated as a cataclysmic news story— bigger, in fact, than when Donald Trump pardoned 1,600 convicted felons. But because we expect Trump to act corruptly, he gets a pass when he meets those bargain-basement expectations. When Musk laments the left not being adequately empathetic and caring, the real question should be: why is it acceptable that his political party openly does not care about people?

But let’s take Musk’s comment at face value: “I thought the left was supposed to be the party of empathy and caring.” I tend to think the left is in fact the party of empathy and caring. Which raises the question: why doesn’t the party of empathy and caring like Musk? Perhaps because his first act as shadow president was to block a spending bill in December, and the bill that replaced it (and ultimately passed) no longer included funding for childhood cancer research. Musk did deign to allow that bill to pass. It’s that his next act was to dismantle USAID, which for only half of one percent of the budget, delivers food and clean water to the impoverished and offers HIV prevention services in high risk areas. It’s because his next act was to gut the CFPB, which exists solely to help Americans recover money from predatory financial institutions that have defrauded them. It’s because his administration is demanding $880 billion in cuts to Medicaid and $230 billion in cuts to Food Stamps. It’s because veterans are getting fired by the thousands. It’s because education funding is being cut, healthcare is being cut, climate initiatives are being cut. And all the while, Musk himself somehow manages to derive more and more benefits— whether it’s in the form of taxpayer funded Tesla commercials on the White House lawn or previously-awarded Verizon contracts that are suddenly getting redirected to SpaceX. So when Musk wonders why the party of empathy and caring doesn’t like him, it’s precisely because they are the party of empathy and caring.

Again, none of this should be read as a justification for vandalism or destruction of property. It should, however, offer some insight into why Musk’s victim schtick is falling flat. He loves to frame himself as some beacon of virtue and integrity, but he’s either lying to himself or lying to you. Just like Trump, he is just another thin-skinned billionaire who feels like he’s getting the short end of the stick, all the while he is quite literally the reason that people won’t get healthcare, won’t get clean water of food, won’t get education, won’t have jobs, won’t get relief from predatory banks. But I suppose we can derive some vicarious pleasure knowing that Tesla and SpaceX are getting taken care of at the expense of the most vulnerable. Elon Musk is interested in helping one person, and that’s Elon Musk.