Following Elon Musk’s announcement of his intent to purchase Twitter (the deal is yet to be finalized), many conservatives have celebrated him, on Twitter and elsewhere. Congressman Jim Jordan (R., Ohio) said that Musk was responsible for “free speech making a comeback” in America. Fox News host Tucker Carlson said the acquisition was a “pivot point in history,” after having previously called Musk our “last best hope,” borrowing from Lincoln. Representative Lauren Boebert (R., Colo) called for Musk to be awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
It’s true that, based on his past statements, the self-described “free speech absolutist” Musk would be a better head of Twitter than current CEO Parag Agarwal or any of the company’s woke staff, whose internal pressure led to several controversial bans and restrictions. However, conservatives should be careful before overly praising Musk. Even as he’s described himself on the right-of-center of the political spectrum (based on recently tweeted meme), Musk is no Reagan-style folk hero for the Right and shouldn’t be treated as such. His record of actions and statements past reflect this well.
Musk has taken progressive positions on a whole host of issues, from immigration restrictions to climate change and abortion. Of the former, he “very much disagree[d]” with efforts to limit foreign skilled-work visas to the United States, a key immigration priority of the Trump administration and many Republicans in Congress. Tesla and SpaceX boast robust “diversity, equity, and inclusion” divisions that conduct regular ‘training’ sessions for employees. Conservatives have broadly opposed such divisions for their assumption of inherent racial biases in people — a premise drawn from critical race theory, which Republicans have targeted. And Tesla has also benefited from Democrats’ climate policies that promote electric vehicles, of which Telsa is the leading national producer.
When Trump withdrew the U.S. from the Paris Climate Accord, Musk resigned in protest from all of the Trump administration’s CEO advisory councils on manufacturing, jobs, and economic policy. Most recently, after the leak of the Supreme Court’s draft decision in Dobbs v. Jackson, Tesla announced it would cover health-care and travel costs for employees seeking out-of-state abortions. A look at Musk’s political donations, moreover, reveals thousands of dollars sent to Democratic politicians like Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, Gavin Newsom and others. In 2020, he supported Andrew Yang for president.
To be fair, this is but the progressive side of Musk’s politics. As most would acknowledge, he has a conservative side as well. He called Covid lockdowns “Fascist” and has written that gender pronouns “suck.” He has also needled Democratic politicians (e.g., “Space Karen” Elizabeth Warren and “Sleepy Joe” Biden), among other things.
If there’s any constant in Musk’s politics, however, it’s that they complement his diverse set of businesses. For all his bluster, he’s a pragmatist. As Ann Coulter observed, he’s “mostly about promoting himself.” Sometimes he takes his pragmatism to worrying extremes, as when he was once offered permanent residency by the People’s Republic of China, after saying that he “loves” the country, amid a curious, ongoing relative silence about other major controversies involving the Chinese Communist Party, from Hong Kong to the Uyghur genocide. It just goes to show that, where interests diverge, conservatives could find him on the other side of a political fight just as easily.
That doesn’t make Musk a villain for conservatives. But he’s no hero, either.