Musk claimed “I’ve never done anything harmful” despite cutting international aid and benefit programmes
Elon Musk has had a meltdown on live TV over boycotts of Tesla, the electric car company that made him the richest man in the world.
This week, five Tesla cars were also set on fire at a dealership in Las Vegas.
Hundreds of people protested at Tesla dealerships across the US last weekend, seven Tesla charging stations were torched near Boston recently and Teslas have been vandalised as the backlash against Musk intensifies.
On Fox News, Musk complained, without evidence, that Democrats are attacking his cars. He said that “It has really come as quite a shock to me, this violence from the left”.
“I thought the Democrats were supposed to be the party of empathy, the party of caring, and yet they’re burning down cars, and firing bullets into dealerships,” he added.
Recently, Musk has led mass layoffs and cuts at the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) claiming that he is tackling “waste, fraud, and abuse”.
Musk has claimed, again without proof, that the US government is losing up to $600 million to $700 billion per year to waste and fraud in entitlement (welfare benefit) programmes.
He also accused the Democrats of committing entitlement fraud to encourage migrants to move to the US so they can win more votes.
Musk said: “It turns out when you take away the money they’re receiving fraudulently, they get very upset,” he continued.
He even went so far as to claim that the left and the Democrats “want to kill me because I’m stopping their fraud and they want to hurt Tesla because we’re stopping this terrible waste and corruption in the government”.
Musk continued to paint himself as a victim, stating: “I’ve never done anything harmful, I’ve only done productive things.”
“Tesla is a peaceful company, it’s never done anything harmful,” he added.
Musk claims he has “never done anything harmful” despite shutting down the US Agency for International Development’s (AID) headquarters, leaving thousands of employees in the dark about their jobs.
He is also cutting entitlement programmes and has slashed international aid.
The World Health Organisation has said eight countries could run out of HIV medicines as a result of DOGE’s international aid cuts.
The New York Times’ Nicholas Kristof, who has recently travelled to South Sudan, said that Musk’s humanitarian assistance cuts are aggravating starvation and causing more deaths in the country.
Musk had previously claimed that his aid cuts have not caused any deaths.
Commenting on Musk’s self-pitying interview, an X user, Art Candee, said: “Elon Musk is playing the victim on Fox News with Sean Hannity. I can’t even with this guy.”
Another joked: “Can’t wait to see Elon’s mom show up again to tell people to stop attacking her precious.”
Olivia Barber is a reporter at Left Foot Forward
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