Tens of thousands of people across the globe have protested Elon Musk’s role in destroying the lives of millions of people in this country, as well as the threat he and Trump present to the world. No program of value ranging from Veterans’ benefits, health care, social security, clean air, and workplace safety are safe from President Donald Trump chief hatchet man Elon Musk, the world’s richest man, best-known Nazi, and sometime chairman of the board of Tesla.
So, it isn’t surprising that the Tesla Takedown campaign has blossomed with large and enthusiastic protests with people from all walks of life and ages to stop this madness. As a result, Tesla’s stock has tanked with its brand now viewed as more akin to Hitler’s Volkswagen than a vehicle to fight climate change. In Germany, Tesla’s sales have crashed and a miniscule number of people have said they will buy one in the future.
Tesla Takedown is one of the many raging streams of opposition to Trump and Musk, most visible with Bernie Sanders “The Fighting Oligarchy Tour ” drawing thousands of people, many in Republican strongholds, across the country. As Bernie declared at a recent rally at Arizona State University:
“It’s not just oligarchy that we are going to fight. It’s not just authoritarianism that we’re going to fight. We will not accept a society today in which we have massive income and wealth inequality, where the very rich have never done better while working families are struggling to put food on the table.”
Income inequality, fear of authoritarianism, and working class concerns are not where you usually find British television personality Jeremy Clarkson, an enthusiastic Thatherite, multi-millionaire, former co-host of Top Gear and the Grand Tour, and currently the host of Clarkson’s Farm on Amazon Prime.
Let’s be clear that he is not on our side, but he has taken the opportunity to puff out his chest and declare that he was right all along about Elon Musk. Musk sued Clarkson for defamation for a critical review of one of Tesla’s early vehicles nearly two decades ago. Musk lost the case. Musk, like Trump, uses lawsuits whatever their merit to silence critics. So, it was a good thing that Musk lost the suit. And, Clarkson is greatly enjoying the turn-of-event against Musk. But, he can’t leave at that.
He recently wrote in the Sunday Times:
The fact, then, is this. I was always scrupulously fair with my car reviews. Musk claimed I wasn’t. And this is his payback. And what makes it so juicy is that he’s being pecked to death by the very people who put him on the pedestal in the first place. The eco hippies.
“Eco-hippies” is the type of nasty swipe that Clarkson likes to make against anyone concerned about climate change. The fact is that Tesla cars were bought by a largely upper, middle-class grouping, where climate change was a way Musk marketed his cars to them. The turn against Musk is not first and foremost about his cars, but his political role in the Trump administration.
I’ve seen a lot of people passing around Clarkson’s pompous column, Seventeen years after that nice Mr. Musk sued me, victory is mine, as if it is something that vindicates our opposition to Trump and Musk. It is not. Clarkson is a notorious bigot and misogynist, who was fired from the BBC’s top-rated Top Gear for assaulting a staffer. For opponents of Trump and Musk, Jeremy Clarkson is not our friend.
