There's no denying that Elon Musk is rich and successful, but that hardly means that he's
universally beloved. In fact, he's earned more than his fair share of detractors along the way.
These are the biggest critics of Elon Musk.
Senator Bernie Sanders has a well-publicized track record of standing up for the little guy.
This has included supporting tax increases for the rich, so it should come as no surprise
that in 2021, he turned his critical gaze on Elon Musk. As he tweeted on March 18,
"We are in a moment in American history where two guys — Elon
Musk and Jeff Bezos — own more wealth than the bottom 40% of people in this
country. That level of greed and inequality is not only immoral. It is unsustainable."
"The very, very rich are getting much richer,
while tens of millions of working-class Americans are struggling."
Musk countered that he isn't in the business of making himself richer. Instead,
he's doing what he does in an effort to benefit mankind. As he tweeted,
"I am accumulating resources to help make life
multiplanetary & extend the light of consciousness to the stars."
That's a pretty significant comeback, provided that you're left speechless by
the concept of interplanetary travel. But Sanders wasn't, as he responded in turn,
"Space travel is an exciting idea, but right now we need to focus on Earth and create a progressive
tax system so that children don't go hungry, people are not homeless, and all Americans have
healthcare. The level of inequality in America is obscene and a threat to our democracy."
This exchange hasn't progressed much since then, but it's probably fair
to assume that Sanders' views on Musk's fortune haven't changed significantly.
George Clooney might seem like a pretty chill guy,
but he can also be a conscientious consumer when the situation calls for it. And in 2013,
Elon Musk's products became a public target of Clooney's critical user experience.
It all started when the actor dissed Musk's Tesla cars in an interview with Esquire, as he revealed,
"I was one of the first cats with a Tesla. I think I was, like, number five on the list. But
I'm telling you, I've been on the side of the road a while in that thing. And I said to them, 'Look,
guys, why am I always stuck on the side of the f---ing road? Make it work, one way or another.'"
Clooney wasn't actively setting out to bury Musk's automotive efforts. Instead, he was
merely explaining why he didn't favor a Tesla like many other celebrities did at the time. Even so,
it appears that Musk didn't particularly care for the actor's scathing and all-too-public review,
as he soon retaliated on Twitter by comparing early adopter Clooney's
Tesla woes with the teething problems of another iconic product. As he put it,
"In other news, George Clooney reports that his iPhone 1 had a bug back in '07."
In February 2021, Microsoft founder Bill Gates stopped by the Sway podcast,
and during a discussion about climate change, he dealt Elon Musk a few stealthy,
possibly unintended potshots. In reference to Musk's SpaceX aspirations, Gates noted that
he doesn't believe that rockets are the solution and that he personally isn't,
quote, "a Mars person." In fact, Gates also mentioned that he eschews space entirely,
because he feels his personal fortune is better spent on Earth. As he put it,
"I'm not going to pay a lot of money,
because my foundation can buy measles vaccines and save a life for $1,000. So anything I do,
I always think, ‘OK, I could spend that $1,000 buying measles vaccine.’"
This isn't the only time Gates has had critical words about Musk's priorities.
Musk has made numerous questionable comments about the COVID-19 virus,
which Gates responded to during a 2020 appearance on CNBC's Squawk Box, when he noted,
"[Musk is] not much involved in vaccines [...] I
hope that he doesn’t confuse areas he’s not involved in too much."
Despite these moments of criticism, Gates has also offered plenty of
praise for the younger billionaire, as he's said that Musk's Teslas are, quote,
"one of the greatest contributions to climate change anyone's ever made."
"So we need more Elon Musks."
When Elon Musk stopped by to host the May 8, 2021 episode of Saturday Night Live,
multiple media outlets deemed the booking a failure. And certain people working on the show
had already jumped aboard the anti-Musk train before the episode even aired.
Specifically, cast members Aidy Bryant and Bowen Yang both took to social media to post their
personal grievances about Musk. Soon after the billionaire was announced as the host,
Bryant posted a since-deleted retweet of Bernie Sanders' critique of America's wealthiest people.
Meanwhile, Yang posted an Instagram photo about a Musk tweet that promised,
"Let's find out just how live Saturday Night Live really is."
To which Yang responded,
"What the f--- does this even mean?"
While it certainly seems that Bryant and Yang were throwing low-key shade at Musk,
it's worth noting that they didn't explicitly criticize him, though it is probably safe to
guess that they weren't exactly thrilled to share the stage with Tesla's main man.
Elon Musk and Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg have bad blood that goes at least as far back
as 2016. That was when a SpaceX rocket explosion inadvertently destroyed an important satellite
that Facebook was planning to use to improve the internet in Africa. Zuckerberg didn't
mince his words about the incident. As he wrote on his personal Facebook page,
"As I'm here in Africa, I'm deeply disappointed to hear that SpaceX's launch failure destroyed
our satellite that would have provided connectivity to so many entrepreneurs
and everyone else across the continent."
This wasn't exactly a personal attack on Musk, but the SpaceX founder nevertheless displayed a bit of
a grudge when he replied to a CNN reporter's tweet about the subject in 2018. As Musk commented,
"Yeah, my fault for being an idiot. We did give
them a free launch to make up for it and I think they had some insurance."
The two billionaires have since clashed about the subject of artificial intelligence,
and Musk has embarked on multiple campaigns — or rather, one long-running one — against
Facebook, to the point of removing his companies' pages from the platform.
Elon Musk and Amazon's Jeff Bezos have been at odds with each other since about 2004.
Both men have a keen interest in space travel. Musk runs SpaceX, while Bezos has Blue Origin,
and the two companies have been in direct competition on multiple occasions.
Back when the two were still rising stars, the two moguls reportedly had a dinner
meeting over their shared ambitions, but their ideas didn't exactly click,
as Musk has stated that Bezos mostly brushed off his advice. Over the years,
the outspoken Musk has criticized Bezos and Blue Origin a number of times. Bezos has kept
his own opinions more under wraps, though he has been known to return the occasional barb.
His personal aim is to colonize the Moon, and he's criticized Musk's beloved concept of doing
the same to Mars more than once. In 2015, Bezos tweeted a backhanded compliment about
a successful landing of the sort that Blue Origin had already achieved. As he put it,
"Congrats @SpaceX on landing Falcon's suborbital booster stage. Welcome to the club!"
It is worth noting that these two have also complimented each others'
space-themed ventures on occasion, so even if their methods are at odds,
they seem to at least recognize and respect each other's hard work.
When a group of young Thai soccer players were trapped in a cave in 2018,
the difficult and high-profile rescue operation attracted the attention of many people worldwide,
including Elon Musk. Alas, this dramatic time didn't go down in history as one of
the tech mogul's finest hours. His plan to use a custom mini-submarine in the
operation faced backlash from a caver involved in the operation, which led to the billionaire
unleashing a series of unsavory tweets that led in turn to a defamation lawsuit.
While this incident may have hogged the majority of Musk-related attention around the story, the
billionaire also faced criticism from a far larger institution: the Thai government itself. Musk
reportedly sent engineers to the site, but while a representative of Thailand's prime minister said
that the PM respected Musk's efforts, they weren't really needed because his plan was simply, quote,
"not practical." The leader of the rescue operations echoed this sentiment when he said,
"Although [Musk's] technology is good and sophisticated,
it's not practical for this mission."
"I think people realize what sort of guy he is."
Clearly, Elon Musk is no stranger to criticism from all sorts of people,
and in 2018, perhaps his strangest critic was rapper Azealia Banks. Although, it's
probably a good idea to take this example with a pinch of salt and add a big, red "allegedly"
over many parts of the story, considering Banks' peculiar description of the events.
The entire situation unfolded over various social media posts in which
Banks insinuated that Musk's famous announcement that he'd turn Tesla
into a private company left the billionaire a complete mess, as he didn't have sufficient
funds to back up his promise. She also criticized Musk about a number of things,
claimed that he was under the influence of LSD when he made the aforementioned announcement,
and made a number of disparaging comments about his talent, appearance, and personal life. And she
claimed that she knew all of this because she was at Musk's house to collaborate with his partner,
Canadian musician Grimes. But since Grimes had her hands full with a panicking Musk, Banks was pretty
much left to her own devices for days, during which time she overheard all sorts of things.
As for Musk, he responded to the entire situation by saying that he'd never even met Banks.
Curiously enough, though, he did end up in hot water with the U.S. Securities and Exchange
Commission because he hadn't secured the funding for his plans, just like Banks had claimed.
"I do not respect the SEC. I do not respect them."
When the popular British car-based TV show, Top Gear, got a chance to test drive the
first version of the Tesla Roadster in 2008, it seemed like a match made in heaven. But alas,
the reality was far more convoluted. Host Jeremy Clarkson was initially a huge fan of the vehicle,
but unfortunately the test version's battery was shown to die after 55 miles.
That led to some pretty scathing comments from Clarkson. As he wrote in The Times of London,
"As a device for moving you and your things around,
it is about as much use as a bag of muddy spinach."
Elon Musk's company didn't much care for this criticism. Tesla actually sued Top Gear for
libel and malicious falsehood, claiming that the show had staged the incident to make the
company look bad. The case was ultimately thrown out. Clarkson eventually moved on
to host The Grand Tour on Amazon Prime, and he's revisited newer, better Tesla models,
and he now has an appreciation for the brand. But comments he made to The Daily Beast in 2017 make
it clear that he doesn't have an equally high opinion of the company's founder. As he put it,
"I've got no ax to grind. He's the only one who ever behaved in such
a petulant way — most industry bosses are a lot more grown up."
Former Alaskan Governor and Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin
might not be the first person you'd expect to criticize Elon Musk. Nevertheless, in 2013,
she wrote a lengthy Facebook post that lamented the Obama administration's perceived efforts to
influence the market. And the object of her ire was Tesla, which she claimed received
unfair support from the government, despite the fact that your average Tesla, she claimed,
"turns into a 'brick' when the battery completely discharges and then costs $40,000 to repair."
Palin also claimed that Tesla's success was a perfect example that, quote,
"We the People are always stuck subsidizing the left's 'losers.'"
The attack didn't go unnoticed by Musk, who referenced Palin's accusations on Twitter,
though he clearly wasn't too terribly wounded by the comments. As he put it,
"Sarah Palin calls Tesla a loser.
Am deeply wounded. [By the way] Model S warranty does cover 'bricking.'"
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