While Elon Musk Appeals to Freedom Loving Americans, Never Forget the Role of We the People

Longing for a "savior" to protect the freedoms enshrined in the U.S. Constitution and restore common sense in culture does not mean forgetting to live up to our own responsibilities (8 min read.)

Image taken from here.

Elon Reeve Musk’s first wife was Canadian novelist Justine Wilson and mother to their five children. In a 2010 Marie Claire essay, she expressed that while dancing with Musk at their wedding reception, he said to her, “I am the alpha in this relationship.”

With that said, Musk is an interesting character.

More to the point, he is an interesting character because he has captured the attention of many Americans with conservative and libertarian leanings.

In today’s boiling climate of progressive left-wing propaganda, the South African born billionaire entrepreneur has most definitely expressed views sympathetic to the First Amendment enshrined in the U.S. Constitution and the ideals of a limited government.

For example, we have learned that Musk offered to buy 100 percent of Twitter not too long after initially purchasing a $3 billion stake in early April, making him one of the top shareholders behind The Vanguard Group. In a released SEC filing, Musk stated that:

I invested in Twitter as I believe in its potential to be the platform for free speech around the globe, and I believe free speech is a societal imperative for a functioning democracy.

So what else can we learn about Musk and why he is appealing to many on the Right?

A streak of common sense?

The richest man in the world has also given us a glimpse into his attitude toward the language of gender, which may draw a small sigh of relief from observing Americans, to know that there still exist entrepreneurs who aren’t totally consuming the diet of political correctness in the corporate matrix.

In July 2020, Musk received major criticism after tweeting “Pronouns suck,” including backlash from his then partner Claire Elise Boucher, who had given birth to their son a few months before. Later in December 2020, Musk tweeted, “I absolutely support trans, but all these pronouns are an esthetic nightmare.”

Musk’s pronoun tweets were deemed transphobic and insensitive towards people who identify as “gender fluid” or transgender. So, no time sooner was the largest LGBTQ advocacy group, The Human Rights Campaign, calling out for an apology. In fact, this lobbing group had previously given the electric vehicle company Tesla, for which Musk is CEO, top ranking on its Corporate Equality Index.

(And it doesn’t look like Musk offered any “apology” thereafter).

An advocate for family growth?

Interestingly, Musk has expressed concerns about underpopulation instead of the popular mainstream narrative that the world is becoming overpopulated and, as a result, creating excess carbon and harming the Earth.

Speaking at The Wall Street Journal’s CEO Council session in December 2021, Musk stated that, “I think one of the biggest risks to civilization is the low birth rate and the rapidly declining birthrate.”

As the founder and CEO of the aerospace manufacturer and space transportation company, SpaceX, Musk further tweeted concerns that “We should be much more worried about population collapse” in relation to his ambitious vision of building a new civilization on planet Mars.

Statements that might raise some eyebrows?

We might want to remind ourselves of Musk’s previous statements that, more than anything, demonstrate his visions around engineering and economic security, as opposed to the net impact of cultural and social changes on American civilization. And some of his comments and positions might be uncomfortable or downright unacceptable for many on the Right.

In July 2021, Musk tweeted a response to The Chinese Communist Party celebrating its 100th anniversary, “The economic prosperity that China has achieved is truly amazing, especially in infrastructure! I encourage people to visit and see for themselves.”

To that end, Musk said in a separate tweet that universal basic income is “obviously needed” and, given the rise of automation technologies replacing human-led mundane tasks, a basic income scheme is necessary because “in the future, physical work will be a choice.”

And for those who believe that our bodies should remain organically biological, except for, maybe, specific medical interventions, Musk’s start-up company in 2016 might make some of us squirm.

Neuralink aims to integrate the human brain with a microchip involving software technology that mimics intelligent human cognition much faster, allowing someone to enhance their memory or enable more effective communication with external software on their smartphone or laptop. Furthermore, upgrading the software within the brain-implanted microchip would allow a quicker adaptation of new high-speed technologies.

Though speaking of medical interventions, Musk described one of Neuralink’s early devices as “a Fitbit in your skull” during a live demonstration in August 2020, saying it could restore eyesight and hearing. This stunt didn’t go without a fair share of criticism from MIT Technology Review that labeled Musk’s claims as “neuroscience theater.” Yet, Musk reportedly said in a January 2021 interview that Neuralink put a computer chip into the monkey’s skull and used “tiny wires” to connect it to its brain.

A supporter of less regulation and freedom of expression?

During an interview with The Babylon Bee in December 2021, Musk moaned about Californian bureaucracy, expressing that the state used to be “the land of opportunity and now it is...becoming more so the land of sort of overregulation, overlitigation, overtaxation,” and added that it was “increasingly difficult to get things done.” 

In the same interview, Musk ripped into a subject matter that would have been highly appealing to many of us who see fundamental hypocrisy of discrimination in “wokeness” culture and believe in protecting our First Amendment:

Wokeness basically wants to make comedy illegal…Do we want a humorless society that is simply rife with condemnation and hate basically? At its heart, wokeness is divisive, exclusionary, and hateful. It basically gives mean people a shield to be mean and cruel, armored in false virtue.

At this point, it might not be entirely surprising that a personality like Musk sympathizes with “the principles that Jesus advocated,” and that “there is great wisdom in the teachings of Jesus, and I agree with those teachings.” Musk believes forgiveness is important and “Treating people as you would wish to be treated. Love thy neighbor as thyself. Very important.”

In more ways than one, Elon Musk is a man’s man.

Judge him as you may, but it’s one of the reasons that many Americans have cheered on Musk, hoping that here comes a “savior” who will restore Twitter as a sanctuary of free speech, allowing users to discuss and debate different ideas—a fundamental aspect to a healthy, democratic society.

Remember, there was a similar sentiment around Donald Trump when he threw his hat into the presidential ring? Finally, someone who wasn’t going to be bullied around by mainstream media and cave into the demands of “woke” culture. Finally, someone who seemed to have enough common sense around protecting a child’s life in their mother’s womb, as well as their innocence in public education. Finally, someone who honored exceptionalism and held views instinctively closer to the American ideals expressed in the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution.

But just like Trump as the star of The Apprentice and the 45th President, Musk, the wealthiest person in the world and fellow business mogul, is only human.

What does all of this mean for freedom loving Americans?

The Founding Fathers were only human too and, in fact, understood human nature. Alexander Hamilton stated that “men are ambitious, vindictive, and rapacious” and seeks to take “human nature as it is, without flattering its virtue or exaggerating its vices.” Thomas Jefferson declared that “In questions of power, then, let no more be heard of confidence in man, but bind him down from mischief by the chains of the Constitution.”

The foundation of America—this Great Experiment—has provided a platform allowing visions to become a reality and raw talent coupled with an ambition to transform the nation—and impact the rest of the world. On this note, whatever happens to the direction of Twitter, we mustn’t lose sight of our responsibilities while hoping for a “savior” to rescue the United States from the perils of globalism and return the nation to the bosom of her mother Constitution.

Today, we have instant access to a series of remarkable documents that have been instrumental to the founding and philosophy of the United States, without which the progressive left-wing politics in the last number of decades might have wholly engulfed America beyond recognition.

Indeed, we the people can fight for ourselves by building communities from the bottom-up that demonstrate self-reliance and self-motivation. In many cases, the utilization of modern technology can also enhance productivity and efficiency, whether we’re running in-person or remote homeschooling programs or reaching out to and connecting with like-minded patriots.

For example, Andrew Torba, a Christian entrepreneur from rural northeastern Pennsylvania, affirmed the founding principles of America by acting upon them and created the social media network, Gab. To this day, Gab.com does not have an app on Apple or Google, so the company is not bound to their ever-changing terms of service and definition of “hate speech.”

It is we the people—everyday parents, students and educators, content creators, novelists and journalists, city workers, truck drivers and farmers, small business owners working remotely or in their local community—who recognize that the country is facing serious cultural and socioeconomic challenges, who actually care about and want to live up to America’s core ideals, and will act to promote those ideals.