By Dr. Harold A. Black

blackh@knoxfocus.com

haroldblackphd.com

I like Elon Musk. I appreciate his genius from his pioneering work with Tesla -daring to start an electric car company when none of the basic fundamentals made sense – to rescuing America's space program with SpaceX, to providing internet access to Ukraine so the world would know what's going on. I also like the fact that Musk is not one of those gutless billionaires who make clucking noises to appease the left. Quite the contrary. He has engaged in Twitter spats with Elizabeth Warren who probably is in shock that someone would dare question her rants calculated to score points with the lemmings on the left. He has also had a very public feud with AOC which begs the question whether she will get rid of her Tesla. Speaking of which, in virtually every circumstance where a business or prominent individual has stood up to the left, the reaction has been to call for a boycott. Obviously, Musk is not afraid of the left and to date all calls to boycott Tesla have been mere whimpers producing a collective yawn. Some wanted to boycott Tesla when it moved its headquarters from California to Texas. There have been cries that Tesla's labor policies are "racist" and anti-labor. The company has been accused of promoting genocide in China by opening a store in Xinjiang province, home of the Uyghurs. However, isn't it interesting that the media won't accuse Nike and Disney of the same thing? But then the left has always contradicted itself and its devotees have pretended not to notice.

Now Musk has bought Twitter and the left is atwitter making a collective fool of itself. It is accusing Musk of going to do what the left has been doing for years. The left is threatened that its hold on popular media is being infiltrated by someone not beholden to the left's ideas of repression and collectiveness. It has railed at Musk being a billionaire even though Mark Zuckerberg's Facebook is several times larger than Twitter and Zuckerberg spent over $400 million in the last election trying to elect democrats. Likewise, Jeff Bezos is a friendly billionaire who bought the Washington Post and caused it to move even more to the left. Steve Jobs' widow owns the Atlantic which once was a readable literary and cultural commentary magazine with diverse opinions and is now unreadable for those not on the left.

I find it interesting that the hysteria over Musk's buying Twitter has accused him of being a racist and anti-transgender. Yet, those on the left are the consummate racists intent on keeping minorities on the government plantation while condemning their children to schools that I think are deliberately rigged to fail. True to their playbook no evidence of Musk's "racism" has been forthcoming. I did not know freedom of speech was only favored by white straight males.

I am not on Twitter but will do so once I determine how Musk is going to transform it. I also do not own a Tesla and likely never will. I think Tesla's are homely looking and too limiting. If I used a vehicle solely for commuting and had a garage charger, I might consider it, provided the manufacturers figured out how to make a dependable vehicle without such high frequencies of repair. However, I do not commute. I take long trips in my diesel Ford F250 often towing a fifth wheel. Even at 12 MPG when towing I can go almost 400 miles before refueling and refueling takes only minutes rather than hours. An EV simply can't do that. I also have a large SUV and am proud of my carbon footprint. Again, trips in the SUV with bags and two German shorthaired pointers require few fill-ups and less time wasted at some charging station.

Given Musk's track record, I am confident that he and his engineers will figure out solutions. One is to make the awful lithium-ion battery obsolete. There is new and exciting battery technology that utilizes sulfur rather than rare earth minerals and produces a range of almost 900 miles rather than a few hundred. That will be a game changer. Musk is already developing long range semi-tractor trucks with long haul capabilities with the ability to tow heavy loads.

Musk embodies capitalism and the innovative spirit, so to him I say "go on with your bad self."

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