Throughout recent years Elon Musk, a billionaire who has owned famed companies like Paypal, Tesla, Spacex, and most recently The Boring Company, has been quite pervasive in internet culture. He owns the aforementioned big companies, he posts memes on twitter, and he appears on culturally relevant media like Rick and Morty. He’s become a Tony Stark like figure to many. A funny sarcastic guy who’s perceived as extremely intelligent, and is about as rich as one can get. Being a billionaire has a very specific effect on Americans particularly for some cultural reason, many see them as extraordinary individuals who have acquired wealth through monumental innovation and a certain specialness that is just inherent to some people. This they see, rather than people who are just good at investing and moving around money in ways that suit them, often unethically. This is the cold reality in most cases, and Elon is no different

Many seem to have the apprehension that Musk comes up with the technology that is produced by his companies, and it’s his genius that has gotten him where he is. This is patently false. Elon Musk is of course more scientifically literate than the average person, he has to be, but he’s just a businessman, and a good one. He knows exactly what to invest in and who to hire. But just because he’s a good business man, does not mean he’s good at running a company.  In fact the two can sometimes be diametrically opposed, as it can be more profitable for an owner to run a business into the ground and sell off the stock then to keep it stable. Tesla  has been in the red for years when it comes to its actual profit. The only way it makes up for that is the faith of those who buy its stock, feeding the company money and keeping it afloat.

This is where the recent controversy comes in. Musk, rather than his usual jokes about catgirls, minecraft, anime, and memes, has gone on a twitter tirade. This resulted in a 14 billion dollar loss for his company. It all started toward the beginning of the year when Covid-19 had just become a bigger topic of discussion. Musk was a firm believer that everything was fine and there was nothing to worry about, continuously downplaying Covid severity. Saying it’s virality was “overstated” and eventually going on to tweet “FREE AMERICA NOW” after the stay at home orders started being enforced. He also kept his workers working, despite some of them actually getting the virus.

One would wonder, why would Elon Musk, who portrays himself as a man of science, spout such unscientific rhetoric? There’s a simple reason, money. As stated earlier, Elon Musk isn’t some kind of benevolent deity of scientific progress as he is hailed to be by his incel ridden cult following likes to be, he’s a businessman. And if Tesla’s stock reached 100 billion dollars by the end of the quarter, Elon would’ve gotten 720 million dollars in stock options, so of course he would deny covid’s severity, because he wanted Tesla to be as efficient as possible, so he could reach that goal and get his 720 million dollars.

This, unfortunately for Musk, did not happen. The goal was not reached and there was no payout. That was when he went on a full on temper tantrum on twitter. More tweets of “Give America its freedom back”, calling stay at home orders fascist, tweeting out the entire national anthem line by line, and the most important one, “Tesla stock price is too high”. And just like that, the stock price plunged and the company lost 14 billion dollars in worth. Losing himself a ton of money but also costing all of Tesla’s stock holders a huge amount of it. This is why no one should idolize billionaires, because they are just humans with immense power. And as anyone should know, power always corrupts those who hold it.