Why Democrats should like Elon More and Republicans Should Like Him Less

 Elon Musk has been a popular and divisive figure for the last few years. Once a darling of the green energy movement he is now the reigning pariah of the Left. Naturally once you become ostracized by the Left you will have to turn in the keys to your San Francisco penthouse. Not to worry, there is a fully furnished single family ranch style home ready for you north of Austin (just minutes from the JRE Studio!), pick up the keys at republican headquarters.

They are both getting it wrong. At best Elon is a chaotic neutral at worst he becomes a lawful evil. Either way Elon does what Elon does.

And therein lies the problem with identifying and associating a person or figure with an ideology, you become almost bound by the whims of that individual. Suddenly when tides shift they are not just an associate they are the old guy living in your semi-detached bungalow a block away from the painted ladies. 

Tesla.

The left loved him because he brought "cool" to a space that was really really boring. In the early days of Tesla your choices for an electric vehicle were... sparse. You basically had the choice of the Nissan Leaf or one of the almost indistinguishable offerings from Toyota and Chevy. They all lacked character. When someone buys a new car they like to list off the things and reasons they bought it, they want to show it off to their friends - 'check out the stereo,' 'the ventilated seats are awesome.' What do you say when you get a Leaf? "Check it out - I drove to work and now I have to plug it in overnight before I can use it again." or "Yeah my wife wanted something better for the environment." The Tesla Roadster and Model S changed that. Now you had something to brag about. People talked about getting a bonus from work and using it to buy a Model S.

And the Left ate it up, at least until Twitter happened.

Summary: Mr. Musk gets upset that some of the people he follows on Twitter are getting banned he goes to war saying that the platform should be a bastion of free speech and while obvious hate speech should be moderated, outright banning someone because they express opposing viewpoints is wrong. He flippantly (I think) says if they don't stop it maybe I will just buy it and make it stop. That gets all manner of media attention and his flippant remark becomes more serious when everyone realizes that he actually could full on buy out every share of Twitter stock and become the sole owner in full control. After some back and forth he seals the deal for $44 Billion. 

And suddenly our darling Elon is behind on his rent for his SF Penthouse so its time to shuffle ol' Elon down to the uptown bungalow. But even then he gets behind on his payments to the Left and before long he is out on the streets. Now according to "the Left" Tesla is washed up and nothing they make is worth the rubber it rolls on. Ask any liberal pundit and you will get an earful about how bad the quality control is and how bad their engineers screw things up (oh the Model Y - in 2023 it was the best selling vehicle of any kind - globally) "They are a technology company pretending to sell cars."

Conservatives are right there with open arms. "We love conservative free speech," "Tesla cars are so cool oh AND they are electric so I am cool and supporting a greener environment at the same time!"

Conservatives should learn from Liberal mistakes and keep some distance, eventually Musk will take aim at a cornerstone of that single family ranch style home. 

Liberals should acknowledge that silencing critics validates their stance and emboldens their base (i.e. Trump).