It's OK if you hate Elon. The world runs on imperfect innovators. | Opinion – USA Today
Remember the “Tesla Takedown” of 2025? Yeah, me neither.
Elon Musk certainly doesn’t. The Tesla CEO added $500 billion in net worth last year, according to Forbes, and is on track to become the world’s first trillionaire this year despite the failed boycott of his car company a year ago. Tesla stock, in fact, reached a record high in December before falling back, along with the rest of the markets, so far this year.
Musk’s level of jerkiness and his ego may match the Mount Everest heights of his bank accounts, but, bothered by progressives’ hyperventilation over his on-and-off again friendship with President Donald Trump, he isn’t.
Speaking of supersized egos, Trump’s net worth rose 27% last year, according to Forbes. The president is now worth an estimated $6.5 billion, making him the 645th wealthiest person in the world.
There’s no place like home, especially if it’s the White House.
I’m neither a Musk fan boy nor a Musk hater. He’s a social media troll, of course, but so are a lot of ordinary people these days. And his family life is too bizarre to make a believable soap opera.
But no matter what I think of Musk as a person, I can’t help but admire the companies he’s launched and the innovations he’s driven. If you have never had the privilege of watching a SpaceX rocket take off and land at Cape Canaveral, then get yourself to Florida. It’s an amazing sight.
Another of Musk’s wonders, Starlink, delivers high-speed internet access around the globe, including in places where rampant poverty or government oppression used to make online connections difficult.
And Tesla, despite liberals’ dirty looks, is still the most successful electric carmaker in the nation with the world’s largest economy. The progressive boycott of Tesla always seemed shortsighted to me for that reason. If fighting climate change is your thing, Elon Musk is your friend ‒ no matter what you think of his politics or personal life.
It’s not as if Musk is the first uber-successful innovator who is personally unlikable. Henry Ford gave the world the means of mass production ‒ thank him the next time you pluck a cold Coke from a refrigerator ‒ but he also was a raging antisemite.
Andrew Carnegie gave us a world-class university and sowed public libraries across the land like a book-loving Johnny Appleseed. He also left the workers who helped make him rich to labor and live in horrible conditions.
Among Musk’s peers, Jeff Bezos and Mark Zuckerberg aren’t likely to win any citizen of the year contests. That doesn’t stop me from ordering everything from salt to shoes on Amazon and scouting new restaurants on Instagram.
Whether Musk becomes the first trillionaire on this planet before rocketing off to Mars matters little to me. The whole “frak the 1%” tempest is a distraction used to manipulate the masses by politicians who want their votes and activists who want their money.
What really matters is what the rich contribute to society through their work, just like the rest of us. And Musk has given us electric vehicles that are among the world’s best, space exploration that is pushing the boundaries of where we can go and how we’ll get there, satellite internet that defies dictators and empowers the impoverished, and cutting-edge artificial intelligence that may deliver wonders that transform how we live and work.
Not bad for a troll.
Tim Swarens is a former deputy opinion editor of USA TODAY and former opinion editor of The Indianapolis Star.