Tesla founder Elon Musk isn’t known for shying away from controversy. In fact, at times it seems like he seeks it out.
For instance, during his now infamous appearance on Joe Rogan’s show, Musk partook in a fairly hefty bit of herbal medicine for the entire world to see. On top of that, one of his convertibles is now orbiting the earth with an empty spacesuit buckled into the driver’s seat.
So, it was almost predictable that he would be weighing in on the current state of affairs during this global pandemic.
In a short rant complete with expletives, Elon Musk doubled down on his stance against the shelter-in-place orders that have gripped the United States economy in recent weeks in an effort to stop the spread of the coronavirus.
The Tesla chief executive did not mince words on a Wednesday conference call following the company’s surprise first-quarter profitwhen he warned that the factory shutdowns are a “serious risk” to the electric automaker’s business.
“Frankly, I would call it forcible imprisoning of people in their homes against all of, their constitutional rights, in my opinion,” he said. “It’s breaking people’s freedoms in ways that are horrible and wrong and not why they came to America or built this country. What the f–k. Excuse me. Outrage. Outrage.”
Then, on Twitter:
“If somebody wants to stay in their house, that’s great and they should be able to,” he said. “But to say they cannot leave their house and that they will be arrested if they do: that’s fascist. That is not democratic; this is not freedom. Give people back their god***n freedom.”
Musk’s shocking social media post was even commented on by controversial freshman Congresswoman Ilhan Omar, who wrote, “Billionaires want to continue profiting off your labor even if it means risking millions of lives. They call this ‘freedom.'”
