5 Reasons Why People Hate Elon Musk — From Labor Violations to Misinformation
Published Jan. 24 2023, 1:36 p.m. ET
Even though Elon Musk had a hand in making electric cars cool, not everyone is his biggest fan. If you don’t keep up with the billionaire, then you probably weren’t aware that a good number of people actually despise the guy.
There’s a laundry list of reasons why people hate Elon Musk. Let’s just say that between his Twitter account and Tesla, there’s plenty of material available to make any random person into one of his harshest critics.
Here are a few of the purported reasons why some people out there may have hate for Musk.
It’s been reported that Tesla mistreats employees.
According to The Guardian, construction workers at Tesla’s gigafactory in Texas made complaints about safety violations. An employee stated that the required training never took place and explained how his safety was put at risk multiple times.
Tesla faced similar complaints in the midst of the pandemic. Musk decided to reopen one of his factories, despite public health orders against this action. As a result, around 450 employees got COVID-19, Business Insider reported.
Most recently, the company broke labor laws when it instructed employees not to discuss pay. According to The Verge, in addition to not discussing pay, they were told to not talk about work conditions, hiring, firing, or suspension with fellow Tesla workers.
This complaint was filed by the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) — and it wasn’t the first either. The NLRB has also filed complaints about Tesla’s dress code, one of Musk’s tweets, and the firing of a union activist, The Verge reported.
To top it all off, workers have described Tesla as a “modern-day sweatshop” — not exactly a glowing endorsement.
Elon Musk has a history of spreading misinformation.
As if health organizations didn’t already have enough to deal with, Musk was helping spread COVID misinformation to his millions of followers.
According to Business Insider, “Musk insisted that the virus was not very deadly, that young people weren't vulnerable, and that doctors were misattributing deaths to COVID-19.” And as mentioned previously, he ignored public health orders by reopening a Tesla factory.
To make matters worse, once Musk became the CEO of Twitter, the company got rid of a policy against COVID misinformation, according to TIME. Some might say that this makes it pretty clear where he stands on the subject.
Musk tends to tweet really awful things.
In addition to all of the misinformation, his tweets have contained some pretty rude and offensive content. Vanity Fair has cataloged some of his worst moments both online and offline.
He’s tweeted sexist “jokes” and made misogynistic comments towards Sen. Elizabeth Warren. He responded to a tweet from Bernie Sanders about taxing the rich with “I keep forgetting that you’re still alive.” And that’s really just the beginning of Musk’s tweets — it would take much too long to create an exhaustive list.
He’s a billionaire.
Depending on what corner of the internet you’re in, you might’ve seen more discourse regarding billionaires recently. You might be thinking: What’s so bad about having a lot of money? Well, according to some, nothing. But others could definitely name a few reasons.
One of the main reasons people hate billionaires is because of taxes. According to The New York Times, these extremely wealthy people are able to use tax loopholes — rules regarding debt, charitable donations, deductions, and more — to save billions of dollars. Of course, Musk is a part of this group.
Even the White House made a statement about taxes: “The truth is that middle-class Americans are the backbone of our economy, pay plenty in federal, state, and local taxes, and in many cases pay a higher rate than the super-wealthy.”
And with Musk being one of the wealthiest people in the world, there’s no wondering why some people hate him.
Musk has also been accused of sexual misconduct.
In 2022, seven former Tesla employees sued the company for sexual misconduct at work, as per Rolling Stone.
And earlier in the year, a SpaceX flight attendant revealed that she filed a sexual misconduct claim against Musk for a number of inappropriate actions on his part, as per Business Insider; SpaceX reportedly paid her $250,000 to remain silent on the matter.
