Billionaire entrepreneur and Tesla CEO Elon Musk recently appeared in a freewheeling interview on the satire website Babylon Bee where he spoke on a range of issues, including being on CNN, Elizabeth Warren, Tesla, taxing the rich, and many others.
At one instance during his interview, Musk took a dig at CNN amid news that one of the network’s producers, John Griffin, was accused of committing a host of shocking underage sex crimes this month. When one of the hosts suggested that Musk “could have been on CNN right now,” which he said was a “real news organization” unlike the Babylon Bee, Musk sharply responded, “I’m not perverted enough, I guess.”
Musk’s snarky remarks came after Griffin was arrested just days after the American channel sacked Chris Cuomo over his involvement in his brother Andrew Cuomo’s defence in the sexual harassment scandal. Besides, CNN legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin was put on leave last year after he was found masturbating during an online New Yorker company meeting.
The satire website took a swipe at CNN’s string of scandals this month with an infographic that read, “CNN HR Department considers adding ‘Are You A Creepy Pervert?’ to the employment application.”
‘Wokeness is arguably one of the biggest threats to modern civilisation’: Elon Musk
Besides mocking CNN, Musk came down hard against wokeness, saying it is a virus that is divisive, exclusionary and destructive. The Space X CEO commented that a tendency to become politically correct may be counterproductive, as represented by the emerging “woke culture”. Musk said “wokeness” is a “mind virus” and is “arguably one of the biggest threats to modern civilization.”
“Wokeness wants to make comedy illegal. Do we want a humourless society that is simply rife with condemnation, and hate? At its heart, wokeness is divisive, exclusionary, and hateful. It basically gives mean people a shield to be cruel, armoured in false virtue,” Musk said.
Tesla CEO says he’s bought enough stocks of the company
Speaking on Tesla stocks, Musk said he has sold “enough shares” to reach his plan to sell 10% of his shares in the world’s most valuable car company. Tesla stocks, which had reached record heights, came crashing down and lost a quarter of their value after CEO Musk said on November 6 that he would sell 10 per cent of his stake if Twitter users agreed.
On Tuesday, Musk had sold another 583,611 shares of the company, taking the tally of stocks offloaded to 13.5 million, approximately 80 per cent of what he had intended to sell.
“I sold enough stock to get to around 10% plus the option exercise stuff and I tried to be extremely literal here,” he told in the interview with Babylon Bee, a satirical website similar to The Onion.
Musk flays California for ‘overtaxation’, hauls Elizabeth Warren over the coals for her ‘freeloader’ and ‘grifter’ jibe
Elon Musk, who moved Tesla’s headquarters from Palo Alto to Texas this month, excoriated California for overtaxing the rich.
“California used to be the land of opportunity and now it is… becoming more so the land of sort of overregulation, overlitigation, over-taxation…it is increasingly difficult to get things done in California,” Musk lamented.
When the billionaire was asked about his infamous Twitter feud with Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren, who called Musk a freeloader for his steadfast refusal to pay his fair share in taxes, Tesla CEO proclaimed that he would be paying the single largest tax bill in American history this year, as opposed to the Massachusetts senator, who he claimed does not pay taxes.
“She struck first. Yes, she did actually call me a freeloader and a grifter who doesn’t pay taxes,” Musk said about the Twitter spat, adding, “I’m literally paying the most tax that any individual in history has ever paid this year, ever, and she doesn’t pay taxes, basically. And her taxes and salary are paid for by the taxpayer like me. If you could die by irony, she would be dead.”
