I guess that I understand why Big Business has bought into all the lefty drivel about DEI and ESG and Net Zero. You need cojones the size of boulders to push back against the lefty totalitarians. And, most of our corporate leaders are glorified bureaucrats that know only how to climb the greasy pole. They know how to keep their heads down.
So it’s not surprising that 50 odd companies got bullied by lefty activists and decided not to advertise on Twitter after it was bought by Elon Musk.
The problem is, of course, that far-right insurrectionists don’t have the same power to bully the C-suite. Power. Lefties worship it, and know how to use it. The rest of us not so much. Indeed, most of us are not that interested in power.
So the courage of Elon Musk in taking on the whole lefty culture-sphere is astonishing.
I mean, it’s not just that he bought Twitter. But he cleared out all the good little girls doing Trust & Safety. And he published Twitter’s actions during the notorious censoring of the Hunter Biden laptop story. And he fired deep-stater and former FBIer Jim Baker for meddling with the Twitter Files.
And now, with the San Francisco administrative hierarchy concerned about Twitter setting up beds for employees at Twitter HQ — oh no! the Safety! — Musk has told SF mayor London Breed to go take a hike.
The fact is that Elon Musk is a man of astonishing courage. You could say, indeed, that he is an example of Nietzsche’s Übermensch — which does not mean fascist dictator or superman but someone who rises above the common ruck of humankind.
Of course, Musk has demonstrated his courage and his ability many times over, attempting and achieving the impossible. Not that he doesn’t take full advantage of gubmint subsidies.
But still, building an electric car manufacturing business — from scratch! Who is foolish and reckless enough to do that?
Building a rocket business from scratch, featuring reusable rockets that land themselves back on Earth. C’mon man, as Joe Biden might have said.
Building his own Starlink satellite communications system, so that the scientists at the South Pole have internet.
And, coming soon, the Starship space vehicle sitting on top of the Super Heavy rocket booster powered by 30-odd Raptor engines. Only the Raptor 1 is being replaced with Raptor 2 with more thrust and less parts. La Wik:
Raptor 2 is the newest version of Raptor and is a complete redesign of the version 1 Raptor engine. The turbomachinery, chamber, nozzle, and electronics were all redesigned, as well as deleting some parts and converting many flanges to welds.
The thing that bothers me is that, up to now, we have not had an SI unit to measure courage. I suppose that good old Achilles was the measure of courage in the olden time. But he had his Achilles heel.
It seems to me that our federal gubmint — there a National Institute of Standards and Technology for just this purpose — needs to announce a new SI measurement unit. For courage. And the unit should be called the “Elon.”
But I guess that we’ll need the usual centi- and milli- units, because our usual corporate bureaucrats have courage that is 1/1000 or 1/100 of Elon’s courage.