Name: Elon Musk is tech Covidiot No. 1 during coronavirus pandemic
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Elon Musk is tech Covidiot No. 1 during coronavirus pandemic

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Thanks for contacting us. We've received your submission.Sign up for our&nbsp;&nbsp;to get a daily update on the coronavirus pandemic.After working as a journalist for over 20 years, much of it in the celebrity world, I have found that whatever age a person becomes famous is the age when his or her maturity (usually) stops.But something a little different happens in the tech industry: Tech bros, it seems, develop a Jesus complex right after their first big deal — believing they (and only they) can save the world because, as their acolytes and mothers have told them, they are just that brilliant.See: Uber’s Travis Kalanick, Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg, Amazon’s Jeff Bezos and, most especially, Elon Musk.The guy behind Tesla, The Boring Company and Space X&nbsp; — the one who is convinced he can make Mars inhabitable — has been showing off his arrogance to dangerous effect during the worldwide coronavirus pandemic.Here’s a rundown of recent examples of him wildly throwing his opinions out there.: “the coronavirus panic is dumb,” Musk tweeted to his 32 million followers.: “maybe worth considering chloroquine for C19,” he tweeted. (In some cases, this treatment has produced frightening side effects, and a small study testing it as a cure was halted due to .)March 16: Musk’s Tesla order and kept its Silicon Valley factory open, with workers saying it was “business as usual.” Several Tesla workers have since for COVID-19. Alameda County, Calif., officials said on March 18 that the factory had reduced its workforce — but that 2,500 would still report to the factory.March 17: According to the BBC, Musk that “Kids are essentially immune” to the virus. This is demonstrably false: In an early April report, the CDC confirmed coronavirus .: “Many doctors are not treating patients due to fear of giving or receiving C19,” he claimed.: Musk tweeted that he was rushing to the rescue! “We have extra FDA approved ventilators. Will ship to hospitals worldwide within Tesla delivery regions. Device &amp; shipping costs are free. Only requirement is that the vents are needed immediately for patients, not stored in [a] warehouse.” Turns out, what he actually sent was five-year-old BiPAP that can’t be used to treat coronavirus victims in the ICU.: He retweets “engineering update on the Tesla ventilator” from Tesla — is Musk now making his own medical equipment?: Musk tweets out a “partial list of hospitals to which Tesla sent ventilators.” A day later,&nbsp; hospitals on the list that confirm they were not sent ventilators, but BiPAP apnea machines.Tesla has reportedly asked landlords for rent discounts as it...This is not the first time he’s promised to step in and be a hero, only to flail. Remember his bid to “save” the Thai soccer team trapped in a cave in 2018? Musk offered up a kid-size submarine via his Boring Company, which experts said — and which showed up after the actual rescue was in process.When British diver Vern Unsworth, who actually was heroic in helping save the team, criticized Musk — claiming that the tech bro was using the opportunity for public relations — Musk accused Unsworth of being a “pedo guy.” Only after Unsworth did Musk issue a . A nasty libel lawsuit followed that Musk eventually won.A year later, published a piece titled “He’s Full of S–t: How Elon Musk Fooled Investors, Bilked Taxpayers, and Gambled Tesla to Save Solar City.”It outlined how New York taxpayers funded almost a billion dollars for Musk’s dream of SolarCity — a solar factory that was part of Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s that was supposed to revive the upstate economy. In the end, just 750 jobs were created at the plant and the project was embroiled in a that led to the downfall of top Cuomo advisers and donor contractors.In November 2019, reported that Tesla was getting an $854 million write-down on the plant: “New York State spent $958.6 million to build Tesla Inc.’s solar panel factory in South Buffalo and buy a big chunk of the equipment inside. Now, auditors are saying the building and all that equipment is worth just under $75 million — or just 8 percent of what the state put into the RiverBend factory.” As of mid-February, the plant, now called Gigafactory2, still needed to hire 360 people to meet its employment quota of 1,460 by April 30, or face paying “a $41.2 million penalty to the state for each year it falls short,” according to the Albany Business Review.Elon, it’s time to take a breath and think — and possibly research work that may not have been done by you — before you speak. Take a page from the founder of Twitter, Jack Dorsey, and put your money where your big mouth is (without constantly crowing about it). Dorsey, who has to donate $6.2 million to CoVID-19 relief funds, recently announced the creation of , using $1 billion of his own equity to “disarm this pandemic.” After that, the fund will “shift to … health and education” for girls.Now that is a hero.Share SelectionStay informed with our newsletter.Would you like to receive desktop browser notifications about breaking news and other major stories?Not NowYes Please

Thanks for contacting us. We've received your submission.Sign up for our&nbsp;&nbsp;to get a daily update on the coronavirus pandemic.After working as a journalist for over 20 years, much of it in the celebrity world, I have found that whatever age a person becomes famous is the age when his or her maturity (usually) stops.But something a little different happens in the tech industry: Tech bros, it seems, develop a Jesus complex right after their first big deal — believing they (and only they) can save the world because, as their acolytes and mothers have told them, they are just that...

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Elon Musk is tech Covidiot No. 1 during coronavirus pandemic

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