The Coming Collapse of Elon Musk

The modern-day John Law is slowly losing control of the "green genius" narrative

Elon Musk speaking at the first launch conference of Falcon Heavy (Credit: Wikimedia Commons)

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For the first time in Tesla’s 17 years of unprofitability, minus the quarters where the EV company bought Bitcoin or benefited from government subsidies, those outside the banished-from-public-discourse community, $TSLAQ, have started to question the carefully constructed narrative that Elon Musk is an innovative genius, the green messiah that will help us save the planet, and, if that fails, colonize Mars.

It took an out-of-the-blue appearance from an Anonymous doppelganger, who set out to expose Musk as a bad actor, a billionaire who’s built his fortune hiding behind the moral virtue of clean energy and by tapping into our dreams of living in a futuristic society. While genuine members of the hacker group were cyber-attacking the Nigerian government in response to its ban on Twitter, the pseudo-Anonymous figure released a YouTube video, warning Musk that his time as a Dr. Evil-esqué billionaire was limited.

The video started by roasting Elon Musk’s mainstream persona, alleging he’s not the innovative Jesus of the 21st-century but a plutocrat addicted to power and trolling his critics online. “You have tapped into the desire that many of us have, to live in a world with electric cars and space exploration,” the Anonymous doppelganger said. “But recently, your carefully created public image is about to be exposed, and people are beginning to see you as nothing more than another narcissistic rich dude.”

The main meat of the video went on to highlight issues at Musk’s nest egg, Tesla, revealing how the EV maker had made more money holding cryptocurrencies than selling cars, had exploited children in overseas lithium mines, and had provided awful conditions for its workers in pursuit of profit (or lack thereof). The ending packed the biggest punch, however, exposing how Musk had outclassed all other crypto pump-and-dump schemers by shattering the dreams, and digital wallet balances, of the new breed of shitcoin and meme-stock investors.

Anyone who watched that video must have had a light bulb moment, thinking, “maybe Musk and his public image don’t match up?” Still, this had zero impact. The church of Elon survived another big reveal because the quasi-Anonymous character’s stunt was mediocre at best. He had been given a massive platform but failed to use it to go deep into the weeds of Musk’s past and punch a permanent hole in the false green-genius narrative. Since the video did raise many eyebrows, what might have happened if it had exposed them to the significant dirt on Musk, the gigantic cesspool of lies, corruption, and deception that’s been out in the open for ages, which most of the media and the U.S. establishment have swept aside and ignored?

Musk’s empire has grown not only through innovation but through a series of shady deals, monetary “cumrockets,” and bizarre theatrics. His last-ditch attempt to save an insolvent SolarCity in 2016, where he built a — proven — fake “solar shingle,” presented it to Tesla shareholders, and convinced them to approve a merger, is one for the history books. Failing to pull this off meant the collapse of his empire and the wealth of several family members. Yet most of the media, minus a few outlets, refused to cover how Musk had used a bogus product demo to bail out his entire umbrella, a thriller-like movie scenario that comically took place on a film set at Universal Studios.

This was not the only strange theatre Musk put on. Last year, to demonstrate Neuralink’s latest brain interface technology, employees implanted a computer chip in a pig named Gertrude and fired off “neural signals” in her brain, a practice most neuroscience experts said was basic. “Recording from neurons in live and behaving animals is a standard procedure … and is decades old,” said a perplexed Sussex School of Engineering and Informatics Professor Thomas Nowotny. So when Elon went on to claim that Neuralink might cure cognitive illnesses and mental disorders in the future, you could start to smell the snake oil over the potent stench of manure coming from Gertrude’s pen.

These odd public performances, and the sketchy rationale behind each of them, have helped form and expand the $TSLAQ movement, the only dedicated skeptic community of a Fortune 500 company — a red flag that many journalists have failed to pick up on.

Its most famous members, those hell-bent on exposing dodgy goings-on within Musk’s empire, have not only had to deal with the backlash from Musk’s fans but from Elon Musk himself. When scientist and former solar executive, TeslaCharts (TC), became the prominent $TSLAQ figurehead, Musk tweeted him, “How big is your short position? Just curious.”

Following that tweet, TC said on Grant William’s podcast that his Twitter and Apple accounts were hacked, and “strange people” kept parking outside his “isolated” family house, driving off quickly as he went to confront them. An unknown hacker even threatened a company that TC had ties to and had shared the same opinions of Musk. The attacker initiated a wire transfer from the company’s bank account, which it blocked, anticipating the attack.

And when $TSLAQ cofounder Lawrence Fossi, nicknamed Montana Skeptic, started snooping around in Tesla’s financials, publishing articles suspecting the company of fudging its numbers, Musk called up Fossi’s boss, attempting to get him fired. Fossi later resigned to continue the cause.

Taunting critics and skeptics grew fun for Musk, but as he started to realize he was immune from scrutiny, he took it to the next level: abusing whistleblowers and breaking whistleblower protocols.

In 2018, after noticing strange activity at Tesla’s Gigafactory in Nevada, former process technician Martin Tripp filed a whistleblower tip, claiming the EV company had overreported its Model 3 Sedan production by up to 44%. His mistake, however, was to also leak confidential documents to Business Insider, alleging that Tesla had also wasted huge amounts of scrap metal.

A Bloomberg article recounting the story, which read like a post-collapse Enron exposé, brought to light how Tesla employees, and potentially Musk himself, had tipped off the local Sheriff’s department, claiming that Tripp was a mass shooter, “possibly homicidal,” and “part of a grand conspiracy”.

Former Gigafactory security manager, Sean Gouthro, who had also filed an official whistleblower tip against Tesla, came to Tripp’s defense, accusing the company of hacking Tripp’s phone, following him, and misleading police. In response, Tesla’s PR department said Gouthro’s accusations remained “untrue and sensationalized,” arguing that he never raised any concerns until the company fired him, of course, for “poor performance.” (This is the work culture we want to see from a company that’s supposedly propelling us into the future).

The whistleblower mini-saga revealed Musk and Tesla’s ruthlessness, ending with Tripp paying $400,000 in damages for leaking documents, but that wasn’t the end of it. Karl Hansen, yet another Tesla whistleblower, had come forward with even more dirt.

After a distinguished career serving in the U.S. military, working as a Department of Defense special agent, then as an FMC representative, Karl somehow ended up working for Tesla’s security and investigations team. With a keen eye for spotting criminality, he eventually undercovered that a Tesla employee had connections with a Mexican drug cartel, which had allegedly used the Gigafactory as part of its drug trafficking operations.

Yet when Karl tried to report this activity to his superiors, they started cutting off his access to internal company resources. Feeling like they were about to fire him, out of desperation and frustration, Karl filed a whistleblower complaint against Tesla.

The next day was a weird one. Musk showed up at the Gigafactory to simply stare at Karl from his car, and, according to Hansen, told Tesla staff to “hide him up in the hills”. Confronting and intimidating Karl broke practically every whistleblower law, but that didn’t matter. Again, in the end, Musk got off the hook. No charge. His attitude toward every whistleblower who threatened to topple his dream-PR empire was to, like clockwork, label them as a “disgruntled employee.” Tripp and Gouthro, maybe? But Karl, with his background? No way. He was “positively gruntled,” as TeslaCharts described him, following an interview.

His story further proves that Musk has become unstoppable. The U.S. empire has granted the Tesla CEO full immunity from wrongdoing. Imagine if Apple’s Tim Cook, IBM’s Ginni Rometty, or any other high-profile CEO broke whistleblower protocol. They’d be out the door by the next market open. But if Musk steps over the line, he uses his get-out-jail-free card, and his team of lawyers, to pay a small fine for crimes any “normal” CEO or plebe will go to prison for. Not forgetting the other lawsuits Musk has been involved in. His response to a teacher rescuing drowning children? “Pedo guy.” The teacher sued him, but Musk won. Just another day at the office.

How does a man who harasses whistleblowers, abuses most laws, rules, and regulations, supposedly has employees spied on, and advocates for a greener future while creating a huge carbon footprint become the most prominent, richest person on the planet? This is a question we’ll ask ourselves when the Musk bubble bursts, but the reality is we already know the answer.

Capitalism has morphed into extreme corporatism, modern-day democracy has become a plutocracy, and money has lost all meaning. This rise of plutocratic corporatism paired with ultra-cheap monetary conditions has created a breeding ground for bad actors and sociopaths to ascend to stardom.

Two types of people exist in the world today: manipulators and the manipulated. We all notice this at some point. We either resist the urge to become a sociopath or embrace it, rising through the ranks of the sociopathic power hierarchy. How far we climb up the ladder depends on our ability to outdo the competition. The higher we get, the harder it gets. Normal, compassionate people don’t go far. Some good eggs reach the upper echelons by accident. But at the top of the pyramid, that’s where we find the experts of perception management.

At the apex, you’ll find Elon Musk. He’s built his wealth, power, and fame by mastering manipulation and forming powerful narratives, creating the ultimate “dream factory” that appeals to both insiders in the U.S. establishment and the outside masses. He’s convinced society to fund a massive futuristic orgy, which grows based on making ever more bizarre promises thatnever come true.

“Elon Musk Today”, a dedicated website set up to track Musk’s crazy assurances, reports that, as of 17th June 2021, it’s been “455 days since Elon Musk predicted that Coronavirus would vanish to justify keeping Tesla’s factories open,” “787 days since Elon Musk said there will be a million fully autonomous Tesla robotaxis in a year”, and “869 days since Elon Musk said Tesla would likely be cash flow positive in all quarters going forward.”

These are the recent ones.

Looking back at his “legacy” promises, it’s been “1,306 days since Elon Musk said Tesla would sell a pickup truck,” “1,574 days since Elon Musk took deposits for a space tourism flight around the moon scheduled for 2018,” and “3,410 days since Elon Musk said Tesla will never need to raise capital again.”

But as Common Knowledge — information everybody knows that everybody knows — states that Musk will save Earth via renewable energy, that digging tunnels under Las Vegas is innovative, and that Neuralink will somehow cure complex cognitive diseases despite real scientists trying to remedy these for decades, Musk remains untouchable. The U.S. empire’s narrative machine has convinced us that Elon is a super-genius, consequently, anything he says or does becomes insulated from scrutiny and common sense.

It’s why he gets away with calling Teslas “full self-driving” cars. It’s why he gets away with small fines and no jail time for blatant mid-session securities fraud. It’s why he gets away with calling heroes “pedo guys.” Crony capitalism combined with ultra-cheap monetary conditions has enabled Dr. Evil-type figures to pursue their wildest fantasies, all while figuratively mooning the authorities on their own front lawn. The list of Musk’s shenanigans is endless. It’s the Elonwashing era.

If we look at Musk and his dream factory in a different (objective) light, if we overcome the Elonwashing, what do we see? Are his creations still innovative or a defect of cheap money and crony capitalism combined? Is the Boring Company, well, boring? Do we need to go to Mars? Was the latest Neuralink unveil just an elaborate theatre like the SolarCity bailout?

The truth is staring us in the face, but the green genius narrative blinds us. Strip it back, and objectivity appears. The Boring Company is, in fact, boring. It’s a glorified subway. The fake product demos have saved Musk’s empire while similar stunts from other bad actors have prompted their downfall. Rockets landing on their backsides is not a breakthrough technology, and we don’t need to colonize Mars. We’re having difficulty saving our home planet.

This doesn’t matter, though. Elon is now too big to fail, and his dream factory will continue to churn out new creations at an ever-increasing rate.

Big reveals such as the pseudo-Anonymous video will slowly chip away at everyone’s perception. But the real tipping point is when the cheap money status quo of zero interest rates, colossal money printing, and bailout capitalism finally ends. It’s what’s propping up the Muskian empire, and when it breaks, will turn the narrative and the media — who belong to the same elite funding Musk’s ventures — against him.

Throughout history, when manias fade, prominent figures who amass wealth through deception posing as optimistic innovation end up bankrupt and sometimes exiled, spat out by the empire that sponsored their wild experiments.

In the 18th century, John Law became the richest man in Europe, concocting the Mississippi Bubble, one of the first and greatest Ponzi schemes of all time. He persuaded most French citizens and the royal house to buy into his vision of turning Louisiana from a swamp into a utopian, capitalist paradise. But when the bubble burst and the majority turned on him, the French King had Law exiled, who spent the rest of his life as a gambler in Venice.

History never repeats, of course, though it does rhyme, and a similar fate looks destined to play out for Musk. His empire will fall when the elites who have sponsored his dream machine must confront economic gravity and the undoing of the greatest financial mania on record. It’s hard to imagine that his unnecessary, unprofitable companies will stay at the top of the elites’ agenda once the ultra-cheap monetary age comes to a sudden end.