Elon Musk
© Evan Agostini/Invision/APTesla billionaire Elon Musk can’t just be dismissed as just another right-wing ‘culture warrior', writes Daisy Cousens.
The Tesla billionaire has one by one taken the left to task on their most cherished institutions and public figures - and the importance of his anti-establishment trolling can't be understated.

Tesla CEO Elon Musk has once again made headlines after Twitter finally agreed to give him internal data revealing the true number of bot accounts on the platform.

This is the latest win in Musk's trolling of the left-wing establishment.

Since his audacious move to acquire Twitter, the mere mention of the name "Musk" sends journalists, Democrat politicians, and the far-left Twitterati into a spin.

Their reactions range from full-blown online meltdowns to snobbish disparagement from the cultural "elite".

In a spectacular display of the pot calling the kettle black, co-host of ABC's The View Joy Behar recently called Musk "a self-important bore".

The Left hated Musk well before his Twitter takeover - not just because of his snappy tweets decrying the rise of wokeism and defending free speech.

The biggest problem the establishment has with Elon Musk is they don't know how to categorise him.

On one hand, he is arguably the greatest pioneer for new tech and renewable energy the world has ever seen.

That rules out slapping him with the "climate denying, anti-science kook" label.

He's also been a long-time Democrat supporter (although he recently revealed he will now vote Republican), so they can't brand him a conservative.

In usual circumstances, the left would embrace him as one of their own.

Yet Musk relentlessly, and with great charm, continues to attack their sacred cows. The most obvious of these is Twitter.

It's too appalling to put into words the idea that their favourite platform could be owned by someone who plans to allow people they disagree with to speak freely.

Then there's the time Musk teased Democratic Congresswoman and progressive darling Alexandria Ocasio Cortez on Twitter by asking her to stop hitting on him, after she appeared to imply he was a "billionaire with an ego problem".

And how about when he called President Joe Biden "a damp sock puppet in human form", after the US leader gushed over Ford's advances in creating electric vehicles, while ignoring Tesla's achievements in the field.

Not to mention the leaked text messages revealing Musk refused to take seriously fellow billionaire Bill Gates' offer to team up for some climate change philanthropy, as Gates had a half-a-billion-dollar short position against Tesla; the company that, as Musk put it, is "doing the most to solve climate change".

Musk has even skewered one of the left's most cherished institutions - working from home.

A couple of weeks ago, he sent a company-wide email to Tesla employees, informing them they must work a minimum of forty hours a week in the office, or he would assume they'd resigned.

When asked what he had to say to people who thought the concept of coming to work was "antiquated", Musk replied via Twitter, "they should pretend to work somewhere else".

The importance of Elon Musk's anti-establishment trolling (whether accidental or deliberate) cannot be understated.

Unlike conservative commentators and politicians who push back on left-wing cultural narratives, Musk can't be dismissed as just another right-wing 'culture warrior'.

His vast wealth and inability to be categorised allows him to bypass the stringent cultural mores imposed upon most public figures.

That, of course, is the primary reason the establishment loathes him; Elon Musk cannot be controlled.