On Friday, when a Twitter user quoted a recent report on CEO-to-worker pay ratio, highlighting Tesla had the lowest, SpaceX and Tesla CEO Elon Musk went on a downward spiral starting with calling all socialists humourless and ending with calling Karl Marx a capitalist.
Twitter was left especially confused and angry and started taking Musk down after he said: “Those who proclaim themselves ‘socialists’ are usually depressing, have no sense of humour & attended an expensive college. Fate loves irony,” Musk said.
When some asked what he would proclaim himself as, he replied, “A socialist”.
The Angry Proletariat
But it was at this point that he said something that riled many people up.
He was referring to Karl Marx, arguably the most renowned socialist philosopher, who wrote the book Das Kapital which places capitalism in a historical context and critiques both it, and the political systems in which it thrives.
The proletariat of Twitter wasn’t having it at all. Sample these responses:
Mockery & Disbelief Follow
While the general tone of responses to Musk were angry, some couldn’t believe he said what he did and were unsure if he meant it as a joke.
Some decided to start a thread along the same lines of “Marx was a capitalist. He wrote a book about it” tweet.
Musk Doubles Down, Then Leaves
The following morning, on Saturday, Musk tried to explain what he meant to say when he said he was a socialist.
But for the people of Twitter “with no sense of humour”, he only made it worse.
At this point, Musk simply bailed.
Musk with his $21 billion net worth may have made a fool of himself by directly and indirectly distancing himself from the tag of “capitalist”, but he was right in calling himself a socialist in one sense: His company Tesla receives millions in tax incentives and breaks, while his company SpaceX receives federal contracts and has received massive subsidies from state governments.
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