Elon was liberal until he wasn't. Politics is like sports teams. It's an immutable identity for the poor. But for the wealthy they are open to purchase any team.
Which, fair, you can point to his giant bankroll. Hard to square that with his public persona over the years. Easy to say he has declined recently. But, I'm starting to question how long it was always there.
Still, none of that stopped him from claiming this quite strongly. Which, it would be fine if this was offhand statements. Because, yeah, who cares? But it seems he has pushed this idea for many years, whenever he could. Not exactly the sign of a healthy person. :(
Possibly even further back, given the fight with the Top Gear car review show: https://www.drive.com.au/caradvice/remember-when-tesla-tried...
Those two incidents together definitely make a hypocrite out of Musk, even if he did win the lawsuit as defendant in the caving case.
It’s not about any principle besides lining his pockets, even if it destabilizes the world and leads to people moving further in the direction of blaming the other.
This may create an environment where someone more extreme than both he and trump will flourish and that will be a nightmare the likes of which we do not want to know.
When I was growing up in the 1990s, there were about as many conservative democrats as liberal ones: https://news.gallup.com/poll/467888/democrats-identification.... In just the last 20 years, the party has become much more liberal, which has pushed many Democrats into the GOP. At the same time, educated professionals have left the GOP and become Democrats. Political alignments are actually quite fluid.
https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2022/03/10/the-polar...