Elon Musk is one of the most known people on earth. Some love him for what he’s done for car travel and for space travel. Others like what he has to say (and he often has an opinion on different things as you’ll soon see). And there are also those that think he just uses his power and now his platform (Twitter) to say or do bad things. He’s surely done a lot of good for the world but he’s also gone off the rails in some times so here are 9 weird moments with Elon Musk.
1. Musk Said That The Us Government Should Stop Offering Subsidies To Companies
Nothing wrong with that BUT this was after his own companies had received BILLIONS in subsidies from the same US government. Double standards, anyone?
You can read more about the many subsidies Musk’s companies have received here.
2. He Was Charged With Securities Fraud After Making Misleading Tweets
Musk used Twitter to engage in securities fraud by tweeting in August, 2018 to his then 22 million followers that he was about to take Tesla private at $420 a share. That price was bigger than the price of Tesla at the time. He also stated that funding for this transaction is secured and it only needed a shareholder vote for it to become reality. Musk shouldn’t have shared these details that would have surely impacted the market (and they did as the Tesla stock was up 6% soon after this tweet). Whether Musk did this on purpose or not doesn’t matter that much. He shouldn’t have done it at all.
3. Elon Does Not Like His Father
4. He Predicted The Us Would Be At Close To Zero New COVID Cases At The End Of April 2020
5. He Canceled A Tesla Order Because That Person Criticized Him
Now that’s good business, isn’t it? In 2015, Stewart Alsop wrote on Medium that he was disappointed by the poor organization at a Tesla Model X launch event. He needed to make a $5000 deposit for the new car so he would be allowed to attend. Also the event started 2 hours after it should have and there wasn’t much food for the guests. Sounds like bad planning.
Musk got so upset he just canceled the order. Maybe what he should have done instead is make sure in the future all events were better handled. For a person that says he loves free speech Musk sure has a funny way of showing it sometimes.
6. Musk Doesn’t Like Unions For Some Reason
He says he likes free speech but unions are not his thing. He actually fired someone that was working in union organizing and he then proceeded to threaten workers with a potential loss of stock options if unionizing happened.
“Why pay union dues & give up stock options for nothing?” he wrote on Twitter.
7. He Could Have (Maybe) Ended World Hunger But Didn’t
CNN said at one point that “2% of Elon Musk’s wealth could help solve world hunger” to which Musk tweeted that if the U.N. World Food Program
“can describe on this Twitter thread exactly how $6B will solve world hunger, I will sell Tesla stock right now and do it.”
To this, WFP director David Beasley made such a plan and shared it with Musk and everyone else.
Here is that plan:
https://www.wfp.org/appeal-billionaires-famine
https://www.wfp.org/stories/wfps-plan-support-42-million-people-brink-famine
Musk did not reply. While it’s not fair to put this huge problem just on Musk’s shoulders when there are plenty of other billionaires that could easily help with this, Musk said something and didn’t do it. If just 10 billionaires would donate “just” $660 million yearly we wouldn’t have this problem.
8. Musk Attempted To Practically Destroy A Tesla Whistleblower
On June 4, 2018, Business Insider said that Tesla was scrapping 40% of the raw materials at the Gigafactory. They also said that this inefficient use would cost Tesla around $150 million. This report didn’t make a big impact on anyone and it died out soon afterwards. But Elon Musk didn’t want to admit the failure and didn’t move on like the rest of the world. He wanted to know who was the person that told BI about this.
For him, it wasn’t important that Tesla was wasting $150 million but rather that the world found out. Musk hired investigators who found out that Martin Tripp, a worker in the Gigafactory, “spilled the beans”. Tripp said he just wanted to get Tesla to do a better job in the future and without people knowing about this problem, nothing would have changed. He was probably right but Musk wanted revenge so on June 20, Tesla sued Tripp for $167 million (we guess they wanted to recuperate that wasted $150 million).
But Musk didn’t stop there. He or someone close to him sent an anonymous tip to the police telling them that Trip was planning a… hold on to your hats… mass shooting at Gigafactory! Amazing, right? But wait, it gets better. The police had to follow up on this tip and went to Tripp’s house who was unarmed and crying. Martin was scared of Musk and what he could do. Then Tesla’s PR department spread the rumor that Mr. Tripp is homicidal and a part of some sort of conspiracy. Musk also said that Tripp admitted to taking bribes from Business Insider for the information he provided. Musk didn’t provide any proof of this.
More details about this case here
9. Musk Actually Paid $50.000 To A PI To Dig Up Dirt On A Cave Diver
When the very publicized rescue (in the Thailand caves) of a boys soccer team was underway, Musk wanted to help but was told his help was not needed. Then he called one of the divers a “pedo guy” for some reason. That person eventually sued Musk (after Musk didn’t offer apologies or anything of the kind). In court, Musk said: “When I said ‘pedo guy,’ I didn’t mean that he was literally a pedophile; it was just an insult.”
Musk hired a private investigator to get details on Mr. Unsworth (the cave diver in question) suspecting him of having an underage wife (at the time of marrying her) and other things he didn’t show any proof of.
You can find a lot more details about this whole thing here:
There are a lot more weird Elon Musk episodes where he tweeted about different people, sometimes making fun of them or downright calling them all sorts of names. These 9 we’ve outlined are some of the more noteworthy ones, showing that Musk can get pretty heated under the collar in some moments. This doesn’t mean Elon Musk didn’t do a lot of good for different people and even the world, it just means he sometimes goes overboard when he gets angry.
Recommended reading next: 26+ Wonderfully Weird And Unique Celebrity Baby Names
FAQ
What is Elon Musk’s IQ?
Elon Musk’s IQ is 155 while the average is 100.
What scares Elon Musk the most?
The risk of AI being used with nefarious purposes, by the wrong kinds of people scares Elon Musk the most.
How much does Elon sleep?
Elon Musk now sleeps around 6 hours a night. He used to sleep less, trying to be more productive but he said that gave him “brain pain” and has since started to sleep more.
