Let’s Talk About Elon Musk’s Irresponsibility

One of the world’s richest men, Elon Musk, has a net worth of 264.6 billion USD, giving him abundant power. Even with his massive amount of wealth, Musk has managed to make several poor decisions that affected him and the people around him. Musk has dug a hole for himself and proved that he is nothing more than another irresponsible and manipulative billionaire. Musk’s track record ranges from sending out Tweets that resulted in significant legal battles to issuing empty promises to investors to finally having multiple allegations of maltreatment to employees.

Musk has made himself infamous for his regretfully poor tweets. An example of his adverse history with Twitter was from a series of misleading tweets that Musk made in 2018, where he falsely claimed that he was able to take Tesla private for $420 a share. The Securities and Exchange Commission took Musk to court for fraud charges against Tesla according to SEC.gov. The tweets were used in court against Musk, ultimately forcing the Tesla owner to settle for $40 million.

In another instance, in July 2018, Musk Tweeted a passage calling a British diver who rescued a boy from a cave a “pedo.” The tweet received backlash for its distasteful approach to a problematic situation and Musk was retaken to court for defamation of the diver. Though Musk won the case, he still received an abundant amount of criticism for the mistake. Aside from the tweets that ended up in court cases, Musk has tweeted other poorly written tweets such as homophobic tweets.

“I absolutely support trans but all these pronouns are an aesthetic nightmare,” Musk said in a tweet from Dec. 2020.

Besides creating his lousy reputation on Twitter, Musk has also earned an infamous reputation for his empty promises for his company, Tesla. According to the website elonsbrokenpromises.com, Musk promised to create over 500,000 Model 3 Teslas in 2018. Tesla had only completed approximately 34,000 cars by the end of the year. Another promise Musk made was the “fully self-driving car” in 2017. Musk aimed to have the production done within six months.

Over four years later, in 2021, Tesla began allowing select customers to buy the new model. According to the Washington Post, Musk promised to found Neuralink and provide the ability to connect minds to computers. Musk projected that the mind chips would be implanted into humans by 2020 but in 2021 the chips were still being tested on monkeys and pigs. Another broken promise was the Tesla Semi Truck, which was projected to be introduced to customers in 2019. The trucks are still in production with a few orders expected to be released in 2023.

In addition to his various controversies, Musk’s companies have also fallen into several disputes. In Dec. of 2021, six women filed lawsuits against Tesla, according to the media site, Quartz. The women claimed to experience sexual harassment within the company’s walls. Employees from SpaceX had also come forward about their past troubles with Musk’s company. The employees complained of Musk’s Twitter enabling the harassment through his joking manner. Musk’s jokes would include sexist humor, such as proposing to create the Texas Institute of Technology and Science. Musk’s stunt was behind the school’s inappropriate acronym (TITS). Again, Musk’s tweets had caused trouble but in this case his employees were harmed because of his reckless actions.

Musk has made horrible decisions throughout his career. Musk has created a negative reputation for himself through suggestive Twitter posts. Musk has also proven to lack motivation and drive to finish his major projects, leaving investors worried. Musk has been given a bad name for the questionable treatment of his employees. He has proved that he is nothing more than an irresponsible and manipulative billionaire.