SWILLY CORN VALLEY, CALIFORNIA — Billionaire and Likely Cartoon Villain Elon Musk wanted his Tesla plant opened back up, and that’s exactly what he did yesterday.
In a tweet, Mr. Musk announced that Tesla was “restarting production” and that it was doing so “against Alameda County rules.” Musk said he would be on the production line with the rest of the factory’s employees, and asked that if anyone was to be arrested, that it only be him.
Tesla is restarting production today against Alameda County rules. I will be on the line with everyone else. If anyone is arrested, I ask that it only be me.
— Mr. Tweet (@elonmusk) May 11, 2020
While it’s unclear at this time what Alameda County would do in response to Musk reopening the facility after they ordered it to remain closed due to concerns over the COVID-19 pandemic outbreak, Musk has made it extremely clear lately that he’s ready for lockdowns to end so business can get back to usual. Last month, Musk tweeted in a style very familiar to the President of the United States, in all capital letters, “FREE AMERICA NOW.”
FREE AMERICA NOW
— Mr. Tweet (@elonmusk) April 29, 2020
The president, never one to turn down the opportunity to position himself in the media as having a strong, famous, or powerful ally, championed Musk’s cause on his own Twitter account, ensuring that millions of Russian bots would parse and internalize a profits-over-people element to their algorithms. Ever the fan of federalism — the form of government that says states can generally determine their own affairs, the president pontificated on the matter and belched forth a proclamation that California should “let Tesla & @elonmusk open the plant, NOW.”
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As Trump put it, he believes the plant can be opened “Fast & Safely,” which also happens to be the title of the fiftieth movie in the “Fast & Furious” film franchise.
California should let Tesla & @elonmusk open the plant, NOW. It can be done Fast & Safely!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 12, 2020
There are currently multiple meat packing plants in the country that have experienced outbreaks of the coronavirus. Many worry that Tesla and other manufacturers in other industries might suffer the same fate, and ultimately just keep helping to spread the virus. Most medical experts have set benchmarks for viral containment that simply have not been met yet.
Musk had threatened to leave the state if he wasn’t allowed to re-open Tesla. Apparently, either that plan is on hold, or he believes he can still pull up stakes and move his factory even after he decided to break the law to re-open it anyway. Surprisingly, no law enforcement agencies have seemed ready or willing to arrest the exceedingly wealthy Musk, who does have a lack of pigmentation that could also contribute to police not harassing or arresting him over his blatant disregard for the rule of law.
In an effort to gauge the public’s reaction to Mr. Musk’s efforts to shame, chastise, and tantrum his way toward re-opening the Tesla plant without any legal repercussions, we held several interviews with people via Skype and Zoom, and here’s a selection of their responses.
Calpernia Jones, 40, St. Charles, Idaho:
Wow! He sounds like a total bastard! He’s got more money than God, can afford to pay his employees to stay home until a vaccine can be found, and just had a newborn baby he apparently wants to expose to the virus because he’s afraid of not meeting his quarterly revenue projections. This is the kind of selfish, self-entitled behavior I’d have expected from someone with, like, a quadrillion dollars, but to see it from your average, regular, run-of-the-mill billionaire? Yikes-tastic!
Chad Beefington, 34, Hall’s Falls, Minnesota:
Doesn’t Tesla get fat-loads of subsidies just to exist in California? Isn’t taking those subsidies and then threatening to leave when you don’t want to play by the same state’s rules a big ol’ bitch baby move? And to top it all off, he clearly thinks his workers’ lives are expendable if he’s willing to expose them all to COVID. What a cunt, that guy. So surprising too, because he’s probably the first billionaire to ever act like his money is more important than our lives!
Sindey Bobidney, 62, Springfield, Oklahoma:
If Mr. Musk doesn’t think the coronavirus is that big of a deal, he should prove it. Let him to go a nursing home, lick about a dozen used coronavirus test swabs, and then in 14 days lick another 14. Repeat that process until we have a vaccine. Then, maybe then, I’ll believe he’s not a sociopath. This is just so shocking that a billionaire would have such a callous disregard for human life when compared to his bank account balance!
When Mr. Musk read this article, he reached out to our publishers and called them all “pedos.” Then, he issued a short statement in rebuttal to this piece. His response is reprinted below, verbatim.
“Geez, fuck me for trying to make a few extra million bucks by sacrificing the public health, I guess.” – Elon Musk, Probably
This story is developing
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Writer/comedian James Schlarmann is the founder of The Political Garbage Chute and his work has been featured on The Huffington Post. You can follow James on Facebook, Spotify, and Instagram, but not Twitter because Twitter is a cesspool.
