Most of Elon Musk’s loudest fans on Twitter have about 47 followers (half of which are bots) and a Paris Hilton-approved bored ape NFT as their profile photo. But here comes notorious buzzkill Neil deGrasse Tyson, with his 14.7 million followers, to defend the world’s richest person… scratch that… the world’s second richest person.
“While casting shade on @elonmusk for what he’s done, is doing, or will do, try to pause & remember that he made electric cars a normal thing in society and he commercialized space — for cargo, satellites, & people,” deGrasse Tyson tweeted, days after Twitter blocked journalists for doing their job. “Count him among those who are inventing civilization’s future.” Leaving aside the fact that Musk has made Twitter five times worse since acquiring the social media platform (and it was already plenty terrible), what might humanity’s future on Mars look like if the SpaceX founder has his way?
Al Jazeera has some predictions:
For starters, workers’ rights would likely be nonexistent. Musk has already blissfully violated earthly labour laws, threatened workers wishing to pursue unionization, spied on employees, and been bombarded with allegations that his behavior encourages sexual harassment and racism in the workplace… Taxes would also likely be nonexistent – at least for multi-gazillionaires like him who have traditionally been loath to contribute even the tiniest fraction of their wealth to US government taxes ostensibly collected on behalf of the public good.
But hey, maybe we could put a Cinnabon up there.
deGrasse Tyson’s defense of Musk is going over about as well as the time he made a “Blues Live Matter” joke about Avatar. “So you’re okay with racism, sexual assault, apartheid, anti semitism, and thievery… For someone whose space aspirations have been over financed and under delivering while systemically trying to lessen the very diversity you supposedly represent?” @Blackamazon tweeted, while @swarmferal2 replied, “Paving the way for commodifying the cosmos… Sagan is rolling in his grave.”
Here’s more.
we should pause and remember that he's actually done fuck all, made people hate electric cars for being dangerous, and he's never been to mars despite building his brand on it https://t.co/gRjG79cEgV
— Kate Barrett (@thewaether) December 21, 2022
He didn't do the first thing and he should not have done the second thing https://t.co/jQ5i9sRlhf
— thornhead (@wormsofbarlo) December 21, 2022
"Commercialising space" https://t.co/h3tXqGbWBQ pic.twitter.com/5ENdbhIIj7
— John Duncan (@Johntheduncan) December 21, 2022
are we supposed to believe that commodifying a cosmic vacuum is a good thing https://t.co/c4Ds9vuhkK
— Jennine (@jennineak) December 21, 2022
Me, looking at the night sky: Yeah this is cool and all, but think how much cooler it would be with ads. https://t.co/Kb4hNXoxMh
— JcKh_ please stop bombing kids (@JcKh_) December 21, 2022
https://twitter.com/_ShamGod/status/1605574991017349120
"While Elon Musk is doing bad things, remember that he also did this irrelevant thing and these other bad things" https://t.co/gdrUA2HabA
— Dave Vetter (@davidrvetter) December 21, 2022
I don't want space commercialized.
I want space to be an exploration/scientific achievement humanity works together on for greater understanding, not for greed & profit.
Short-sighted execs chasing quarterly goals isn't a strategy for exploring the cosmos. https://t.co/uJ5IB2NKYL
— Karus Murrian Daedlyn – Explorer of Enigma Sector (@CDaedlyn) December 21, 2022
“While casting shade on Elon Musk for exposing how the US government abused their power to commit rights violations against American citizens, pause to remember all he’s done for climate change.” https://t.co/LzJcDJ1f8f
— The Redheaded libertarian (@TRHLofficial) December 21, 2022
One of the saddest things about Elon Musk dickriders is that they believe he is an inventor — he’s not. He just buys majority shares in large companies, then puts his name on other people’s inventions. https://t.co/aG0MU1uyYu
— George (@longearedfox) December 21, 2022
https://twitter.com/SaperiaTrance/status/1605490147817947137