We have come to the point where we're no longer surprised by anything that Elon Musk says. However, his latest controversial antisemitic statement has caught the attention of the White House as well. Still, the government has no choice but to work with the tech billionaire for various reasons.
A Necessary Evil, If You Will
Elon Musk has once again caught the attention of the world as he agreed with the conspiracy theory that Jewish people were pushing "dialectical hatred against whites." As a result, the White House publicly criticized the tech billionaire.
A spokesperson from the administration said that it was a "hideous lie" and that it was an "abhorrent promotion of antisemitic and racist hate." Even with the clear disagreement with Musk, the US government still has no other choice but to work with him.
In the past weeks, the US government has been collaborating with the SpaceX CEO and its upcoming launches worth $1.2 billion in order to send Pentagon assets such as spy and command-and-control satellites into space, as per The New York Times.
Even the Pentagon is relying on Musk's space company for defense and intelligence systems. The system in question is called Starshield and it relies on Starlink satellites. For this service, the Pentagon is paying tens of millions of dollars.
Reports say that the Starlink satellites were critical in the country's continuing dispute with China as the Pentagon's own communications satellites are more vulnerable. So far, there are no other alternatives to consider, meaning that they will have to stay with the deal they have with Musk.
The author who wrote Steve Jobs' and Elon Musk's biography, Walter Isaacson pointed out that the US government has tried to develop alternatives, but no other company has been able to "make reusable rockets" or "get some of these heavy satellites into high-Earth orbit."
While the Pentagon and the US government are stuck with their business with the richest man on Earth, other companies have the freedom to cut ties, and they have. Several company giants decided to leave X, formerly Twitter, in response to Elon Musk's Views.
X Advertisers Exodus
Many people are not happy or are offended by Musk's agreement on the antisemitic views. The tech billionaire has defended himself, saying that "Nothing could be further from the truth" as media stories claim that he was antisemitic.
Regardless, the damage has already been done. Companies like Apple, Disney, Warner Bros. Discovery, IBM, and more have left the platform in terms of advertising, meaning that X is going to lose a lot of revenue from ad sales soon enough.
To make matters worse, the X owner threatens to file a "thermonuclear lawsuit" against those who are exiting the platform. As reported by CNBC. This already happened a year ago with other advertisers, where Musk also threatened a "thermonuclear name & shame."
With this recent turn of events, the social media platform is being pulled further away from its goal of reaching a $250 billion valuation, as well as being the "everything app" that Musk dreamed it would be.
