The more powerful person expressing that power to cause harm (economically in this case) to the person objecting to them is not something I would categorize as “soft”, but weak in mind. They have demonstrated that the smallest pushback causes them to react.

Anger and the reactions it causes are allowing someone else to control you.

Musk has shown how to control him in specific ways, therefore he is less of an intelligent being than a reactive one.

Is this some strange form of being even more soft?

Meanwhile the dude with far less power spoke up, that’s not soft thats quite the opposite.