In a somewhat convenient turn of events for pro-Musk camp on HN: Musk is now deeply embroiled in politics. Thus, any discussion of him is inherently political. And of course, politics is largely "off-topic" for HN.

So in addition to the usual flagging and downvoting of Musk-critical comments and stories, they can also be flagged and downvoted for being "political."

I don't foresee it changing anytime soon. Not at least until enough techies finally understand that virtually everything is "political" to some extent, and I don't expect that to happen until we hit the riots-in-the-streets stage of Musk's current political project.