Washington Post Opinion Piece Raps Musk's Whining, Bloated Ego

Washington Post editorial writer Molly Roberts has savaged Elon Musk in a piece, saying “he breaks the billionaire mold — by acting like a big baby on the Internet. The Tesla CEO has been on especially bad behavior this month, though decorum has never been his middle name.”

Photo Insert: The Tesla CEO has been on an Internet tear for the past month.

Musk, who is the planet’s richest man on paper, was essaying the role of a third-rate character when he launched a Twitter poll asking his followers whether he should sell 10 percent of his shares in his electric vehicle company.

Roberts said the busker Musk had to sell at least $10 billion of stock to pay a ticking time bomb of a tax bill due by summer. The plan, as filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) eventually revealed, was prearranged.

He then insulted Sen. Ron Wyden’s (D-Ore.) profile picture after the legislator called for an income tax on the ultrarich, saying he looked like a phallus. Wyden rightly claimed Musk benefited from subsidies and must pay back. Without subsidies, Musk is nothing.

Musk then dragged Sen. Bernie Sanders, taking a relatively routine tweet from the Vermont senator as a personal challenge. “We must demand that the extremely wealthy pay their fair share. Period,” tweeted the 80-year-old independent. “I keep forgetting that you’re still alive,” responded Musk.

Later: “Bernie is a taker, not a maker.” He talks as if he has a franchise on the truth even as he kneels before Beijing to beg for mercy for the defects of his electric cars.

“What gives? Musk has never been your average guy, but he’s not your average 21st-century technology tycoon, either. The rest of them don’t do this. Mark Zuckerberg creates controversy (and raises eyebrows) by wearing a comical amount of sunblock, or saying free speech is important.

Jack Dorsey sets critics off by being super into biohacking. Jeff Bezos wears a cowboy hat on his return from space, or pioneers mass-management strategies that translate into alarming conditions for warehouse workers. (Jeff Bezos owns The Post),” Roberts wrote. Worse, Musk is Mr. Scrooge as he engages in cranky kvetching to avoid paying a jury award of $137-million who was racially discriminated by Tesla.

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