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Right-Wing and Fake News Writers Are Now Going After Elon Musk (qz.com)

Posted by msmash on from the fake-news-war dept.

Fake news galvanized US president-elect Donald Trump's supporters, and sullied his enemies. Now it may be Elon Musk's turn. Quartz adds: The CEO of Tesla and SpaceX has his fair share of detractors, but a new era in a public relations battle to discredit him appears to be taking shape. Bloomberg reports that hard-right groups are lining up to back misleading websites and fake journalists who attack Musk's business empire. Many of the attacks on Musk begin with something factual: His businesses were built, legally, with the help of billions in government contracts and incentives for renewable energy and space transport. But they go on to accuse Musk of fraud and wasting taxpayer dollars; some compare him to a convicted felon. At least three conservative sites have run negative pieces about Musk -- by a nonexistent writer named "Shepard Stewart" -- that include "Elon Musk Continues to Blow Up Taxpayer Money With Falcon 9" and "Elon Musk: Faux Free Marketeer and National Disgrace." Two later retracted the stories. "There's a very obvious precedent" for this, says Sam Jaffe, managing director of Cairn Energy Research Advisors. "That's Hillary Clinton." Musk tweeted this week, "Can anyone uncover who is really writing these fake pieces?"

18 of 736 comments (clear)

  1. What an empty life by ThatsNotPudding · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Folks that can't stand reality conflicting with their hate-based fantasies.

    1. Re: What an empty life by dickens · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Make no mistake this is serious and these people are paid. It's about money and preserving the old energy business structure. Musk needs to hire massive PR and counterattack.

    2. Re: What an empty life by Dutch+Gun · · Score: 5, Interesting

      One thing that Republicans/Conservatives (speaking as one myself) need to do better is recognized that racism still actually exists, but may not be typically seen by most white people. I heard the lone black Republican senator was pulled over seven times in a year. He admitted a couple of those were for speeding, but others seemed to be for trivial matters, or nothing at all.

      From the senator:

      Scott went on to describe a time an officer pulled him over and began questioning if the car he was driving was stolen. "An officer pulls me into the median and starts telling me that he thinks perhaps the car is stolen. Well, I started to ask myself because I was smart enough not to ask him, asking myself, is the license plate coming in as stolen? Does the license plate match the car? I was looking for some rational reason that may have prompted him to stopping me on the side of the road."

      It's unfortunate that the movement got started on a very questionable incident, in which it became apparent that the police did nothing wrong, because it gave the political opposition a reason to disbelieve the rest of the story. That shows the damage that "fake news" can do.

      --
      Irony: Agile development has too much intertia to be abandoned now.
    3. Re: What an empty life by Howitzer86 · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I kinda liked that site. It was a fun read. I also listened to Alex's show for the same reason. The best comparison I could make for it at the time is to the supermarket tabloids. It's not so much that it's fake news, as it was pure entertainment that happened to be taken seriously by random nut jobs we could easily ignore in our day to day lives. (And who Alex could profit from by selling crappy prepper merchandise)

      Unfortunately one of those people is our future President. I'm waiting for him to question the moon landing. Then we will be entering the prologue to Interstellar.

      His rise is symptomatic of an increasing number of people taking these shit-stain outlets seriously. The MSM de-legitimized itself and made this possible, and I place the blame squarely on their shoulders. Thanks to them we have to remind people that these sources are "fake", and that they aren't smarter than everyone else for having a pointlessly contrarian view of vaccinations, 9/11, global warming, the Earth's roundness, or the moon landing.

  2. Soft target attacked by cowards by dbIII · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The same argument applies far more to Lockheed with their joint smoking fighter. Instead of going after real waste these cowards are attacking the little kid in aerospace.

    1. Re:Soft target attacked by cowards by Darinbob · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Every good patriotic defense contractor runs wings around Elon Musk when it comes to wasting the taxpayer's money. But that's ok, they make big weapons to appease the warhawks and bring the pork to their districts, whereas working with renewable energy is a serious sin in the culture wars.

  3. Wait - not everything on the Internet is true? by xxxJonBoyxxx · · Score: 5, Funny

    Wait - not everything on the Internet is true?

  4. Two possible motivations by JoshuaZ · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I'm not sure what the motivation is for these attacks. Musk hasn't been particularly political and mainly stayed out of this election. As far as I can tell, the primary motivations are one of two things. Either one, the people behind this are simply hateful and without a major target like Hillary must choose another, or two, they hate Musk because much of his work (electric cars, solar cells, even wanting to use methane for rockets because methane is a potentially renewable resource) has been to deal with issues related to global warming. If the second is the motivator, then it says something really fascinating: that there are elements of the right which not only are convinced that global warming is some sort of evil hoax, but that they actively hate people who disagree with them and are trying to take steps to destroy someone who is trying to help. If that's the case, it is truly a frightening example of the depth that people can sink to, and the levels they'll go to not just ignore facts they don't like but to actively try to harm people who try to deal with those factual issues.

    1. Re:Two possible motivations by JoshuaZ · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Actually, having thought about this slightly more, another possible motivation occurred to me: there is a fair bit of evidence of Russian meddling in this election and that some of the anti-Hillary propaganda came from Russian sources to try to push the election to the candidate they favored. By the same token, Musk is potentially a real danger to Russian interests, since Russia is heavily oil dependent and also has an advantage when the US is dependent on Russia for manned space launches. If they have the now existing resources and hooks into the US public, then using it to harm Musk is a natural thing.

    2. Re:Two possible motivations by Fire_Wraith · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Are you really surprised? The opposition to global warming was never founded on the basis of pretty much anything but economic concerns, especially by the fossil fuel industry, because there's a LOT of money in it. At the very least, that's where the money to oppose it comes from. It's really not at all surprising to me that there are a few who think Elon Musk is a threat, probably more because of his push for Solar Power and usable Electric Cars/infrastructure.

    3. Re:Two possible motivations by CaptainDork · · Score: 5, Informative

      This.

      Fossil fuel is (I know it's hard to fathom) more desperate for survival than tobacco was back when, and the IP industry is now.

      I helped litigate tobacco and the conversation went like this:

      Scientists: Your shit is killing people.
      Tobacco: Jobs.
      Lawyers: Your shit is killing people.
      Tobacco: Jobs.

      Rinse, repeat.

      --
      It little behooves the best of us to comment on the rest of us.
    4. Re:Two possible motivations by brokenpineapple · · Score: 5, Interesting

      The motivation? Page views. Duh! It makes a lot of ad money. They don't give a damn about the consequences as long as the ad revenue keeps flowing.

  5. misrepresenting the reason for these stories by gravewax · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I doubt this is about pushing any agenda, Fake news drives large amounts of hits/click bait, which in return drives advertising revenue. Their are people all over the world who have realised this and their entire job is to generate fake news, not for any agenda, simply profit. The more controversial and topical the more likely to earn money. Up until a few weeks ago it was all about Hillary and Trump, now they need to move on.

  6. Re:Shepard Stewart by PopeRatzo · · Score: 5, Insightful

    A cursory Google turns up this [dailycaller.com] and this [theliberta...public.com].

    Did you really just point to two of the biggest fake news sites to use them as evidence that a fake person exists?

    I think you missed the point of this whole "fake news" controversy. These twenty-something goofballs start a fake news site to make money off the alt-right, and alt-right news sites who don't do any fact checking immediately pick up the stories.

    In the past few days, there have been several interesting interviews with some of the people who run fake news sites. The reason they say that fake news doesn't work on the Left will blow your mind.

    --
    You are welcome on my lawn.
  7. Re:Mainstream media is scared by Nemyst · · Score: 5, Funny

    You say "don't believe the mainstream media!" and recommend going to Breitbart for news? That's so wrong and laughable that I can't even come up with a car analogy for it.

  8. Re:Shepard Stewart by ClickOnThis · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I think you missed the point of this whole "fake news" controversy. These twenty-something goofballs start a fake news site to make money off the alt-right, and alt-right news sites who don't do any fact checking immediately pick up the stories.

    In the past few days, there have been several interesting interviews with some of the people who run fake news sites. The reason th doing it. Alsoey say that fake news doesn't work on the Left will blow your mind.

    I heard about this story yesterday on NPR, about an alt-right fake-news writer living in Los Angeles.

    TL/DR: Jestin Coler (the fake-news writer) claimed that he does it to show how easily hoodwinked people are by fake news, but when pressed, he admitted he could make lots of money doing this. A few interesting quotes from his interview:

    The whole idea from the start was to build a site that could infiltrate the echo chambers of the alt-right, publish blatantly false or fictional stories and then be able to publicly denounce those stories and point out the fact that they were fiction.
    [...]
    We've tried to do similar things to liberals. It just has never worked, it never takes off. You'll get debunked within the first two comments and then the whole thing just kind of fizzles out.

    --
    If it weren't for deadlines, nothing would be late.
  9. Re: Buuuuuullshit by Vermonter · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Regardless of how you feel about tax subsidies for businesses, you can't fault Musk for taking them. I think corn subsidies in the US are stupid, but if I were a corn farmer, I guarantee I would take them, otherwise I would be at an unfair advantage.

  10. Re: Buuuuuullshit by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Then why don't we have subsidies for tomatoes and carrots and spinach, you know, healthy foods. The corn subsidies are complete political payoffs to mid-western farmers -- the "rugged individual" rural folk who are over-represented in the Electoral college, Senate and House.