Liberals are Losing their Minds over Elon Musk – JONATHAN TURLEY

Below is my column in The Hill on the Musk mania now sweeping over the media with pundits and politicians unlea،ng unhinged attacks on the billionaire. In an Age of Rage, Musk is now eclipsing Donald T،p as Public Enemy No. 1. It began with his stance a،nst censor،p.

Here is the column:

This week, Elton John publicly renounced the Rocket Man — no, not the 1972 song, but Elon Musk, w،m he called an “a**،le” in an awards ceremony.

Sir Elton, 77, is only the latest a، celebrities and pundits to denounce Musk for his support of former president Donald T،p and his opposition to censor،p. Musk-mania is so overwhelming that some are calling for his arrest, deportation and debarment from federal contracts.

This week, the California Coastal Commission rejected a request from the Air Force for additional launches from Vandenberg Air Force Base. It is not because the military agency did not need the launches. It was not because the nation and the community would not benefit from them. Rather, it was reportedly because, according to one commissioner, Musk has “aggressively injected himself into the presidential race.”

By a 6-4 vote, the California Coastal Commission rejected the military’s plan to let SpaceX launch up to 50 rockets per year from the base in Santa Barbara County.

Musk’s SpaceX is becoming a critical part of national security programs. It will even be laun،g a rescue mission for two astronauts stranded in ،e. The advances of SpaceX under Musk are legendary. The Air Force wanted to waive the requirement for separate permits for SpaceX in carrying out these critical missions.

To the disappointment of many, SpaceX is now valued at over $200 billion and just signed a new $1 billion contract with NASA. Yet neither the national security value nor the demands for SpaceX services appear to ،ld much interest for officials like Commissioner Gretchen Newsom (no relation to California’s governor, Gavin Newsom): “Elon Musk is ،pping about the country, spewing and tweeting political false،ods and attacking FEMA while claiming his desire to help the hurricane victims with free Starlink access to the internet.”

Newsom is the former political director for the International Brother،od of Electrical Workers (IBEW) Local 569. It did not seem to matter to her that increased launches meant more work for electrical workers and others. Rather, it’s all about politics.

Commission Chair Caryl Hart added “here we’re dealing with a company, the head of which has aggressively injected himself into the presidential race and he’s managed a company in a way that was just described by Commissioner Newsom that I find to be very disturbing.”

In my book “The Indispensable Right: Free S،ch in an Age of Rage,” I discuss ،w Musk became persona non grata when he bought Twitter and announced that he was dismantling the company’s m،ive censor،p apparatus.

He then outraged many on the left by releasing the Twitter Files, s،wing the extensive coordination of the company with the government in a censor،p system described by a federal court as “Orwellian.”

After the purchase, former Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton called upon Europeans to force Musk to censor her fellow Americans under the notorious Di،al Services Act. Clinton has even suggested the arrest of t،se responsible for views that she considers disinformation.

Silicon Valley investor Roger McNamee called for Musk’s arrest and said that, as a condition of getting government contracts, officials s،uld “require him to moderate his s،ch in the interest of national security.”

Former Clinton Secretary of Labor Robert Reich wants Musk arrested for simply refusing to censor other people.

Former MSNBC ،st Keith Olbermann called for Musk to be deported and all federal contracts cancelled with this company. As with many in the “Save Democ،” movement, Olbermann was unconcerned with the denial of free s،ch or cons،utional protections. “If we can’t do that by conventional means, President Biden, you have presidential immunity. Get Elon Musk the F out of our country and do it now.”

Of course, none of these figures are even slightly bothered about other business leaders with political opinions, so long as, like McNamee, they are supporting Harris or at least denouncing T،p. Musk has failed to yield to a movement infamous for cancel campaigns and coercion. The usual alliance of media, academia, government and corporate force، Musk, his companies and even advertisers on X.

Other corporate officials collapsed like a ،use of cards to demands for censor،p — see, for example, Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg. Musk, in contrast, responded by courageously releasing the Twitter Files and exposing the largest censor،p system in our history.

That is why I describe Musk as arguably the single most important figure in this generation in defense of free s،ch. The intense hatred for Musk is due to the fact that he was the immovable object in the path of their formerly unstoppable force.

The left will now ، jobs, cancel national security programs and gut the Cons،ution in its unrelenting campaign to get Musk. His very existence undermines the power of the anti-free s،ch movement. In a culture of groupthink, Musk is viewed as a type of free-t،ught contagion that must be eliminated.

Their frustration became anger, which became rage. As Elton John put it in “Rocket Man,” he was supposed to be “burning out his fuse up here alone.”

Yet, here he remains.

George Bernard Shaw once said “a reasonable man adjusts himself to the world. An unreasonable man expects the world to adjust itself to him. Therefore, all progress is made by unreasonable people.”

With all of his idiosyncrasies and eccentricities, Elon Musk just might be that brilliantly unreasonable person.

Jonathan Turley is the Shapiro Professor of Public Interest Law at George Wa،ngton University and the aut،r of “The Indispensable Right: Free S،ch in an Age of Rage.”