We are all well aware of Elon Musk
He’s the South African tech CEO responsible for Tesla, PayPal, SpaceX, the possible human colonization of Mars within this lifetime, partner to Grimes, father to Kia, Xavier, Saxon, Damien, Griffin and most recently X-AE A-Xii.
Elon grew up in Pretoria, South Africa where his father owned a half share of an emerald mine.
His brother Kimble is a Texas millionaire restaurateur who recently scammed his employee’s for thousands, barring them from accessing an emergency relief fund they paid into monthly and then quickly laying many off, in a turn of events deemed “Pretty shady” by the head chef of his Indianapolis restaurant. Kimble himself is known for a cowboy hat permanently attached to his head. He looks like a deflated version of his brother (who in all fairness, appears a bit over-inflated himself).
Elon has a poor relationship with some people who work for him as well. Some workers were fired after opting to not return to work when the Tesla factories reopened against state and county guidelines. Conditions have been dangerous in Tesla and SpaceX facilities and the company has not been transparent about the number of workers who have gotten sick or their sanitation procedures. An anonymous employee who did contract coronavirus while on the job described a culture where masks were ridiculed and employees were expected to be in close proximity with each other.
“We will coup whoever we want! Deal with it.”
Aside from Elon’s accolades and pending status as Supreme Overlord of Earth, he has garnered a reputation for being a bit naughty on the internet. He smoked a blunt on The Joe Rogan Experience (which was cool), went on to tweet “Pronouns suck” and in July tweeted “We will coup whoever we want! Deal with it.” in response to a tweet implicating him in the Bolivian coup to oust Evo Morales, a democratically elected leftist, over Lithium.
Evo Morales and his party, Movement toward Socialism (MAS), were ousted last year after they won power. The Organization of American States (OAS) announced there were irregularities in the voting process, undermining the party’s legitimacy. In pursuit of peace and out of fear for their lives, Morales and many high profile party members resigned. The Mexican government offered him asylum and Jeanine Áñez of the opposition party became interim president until a do-over election could be held without Evo Morales on the ballot.
The Bolivian right, backed by the United States, claimed this was a popular uprising against MAS who stole the election, and MAS, along with human rights groups and election watchdogs, called this a coup.
The Washington Post empirically analyzed the voting data and concluded there is no backing to OAS’s claims of fraud in favor of Morales or MAS, but the OAS has nevertheless stuck by their initial claims.
Given the United States’ history in Latin America (specifically involving leftism, free elections and coups), it’s not quite a stretch to think there may have been a bit of meddling involved. Considering the fact that OAS was established in the 40’s to combat the spread of communism, third party statistical analysis of the election results, and that Bolivia sits on the largest lithium deposit in the world, it’s hard not to believe the election of Evo Morales was legitimate and his ousting was not without help from the United States and its corporate interests.
The United States loves ousting democratically elected leftists in South America because The United States and their big business buddies love South America’s resources.
Be it cash crops, oil or minerals, the U.S. is hell bent on making sure they are the only ones making any money on South American resources. After all, why should the people of Bolivia benefit from their own resources? It is the God given right of rich people to take that. It’s just business, you commie.
So when Elon proclaimed, “We will coup whoever we want! Deal with it.” he said the quiet part loud in terms of the United States’ attitude towards South and Central American democracies. They are only interested in building democracies as long as it allows them to exploit a nation’s resources for the betterment of corporations and the country’s elite. The invisible hand of the market just-so-happening to strangle the people, liberalization is always fair.
Elon was flapping his gums on this issue because of lithium. Again, Bolivia retains at least a quarter of the world’s lithium including the largest single deposit in the world. Tesla needs heaps of lithium to make the batteries for its vehicles, and the increased production of electric vehicles has caused the demand for lithium to go way up. Evo Morales and MAS made it clear his party has no intention of selling out Bolivian resources to foreigners. Instead they were interested in nationalization, a process where the government owns a business that would handle the mining, import and export of a resource so the money would flow back into the country, funding schools, public transport, healthcare, etc. But in America and elsewhere, private citizens purchase the mineral rights of an area and reap the benefits themselves, spending it on planes, drugs, exotic cars and lawyers to avoid taxes. As if we would all rather rich people have multiple helicopters with shag carpets than a well funded public education system, medicine for sick people, or a cheap ride anywhere you want to go.
Nationalization of Bolivian lithium would have an effect on the global market in the places Elon buys it, like Australia. Needless to say Elon and his boys don’t want a foreign government’s efforts to provide for its people fucking up their cash flow. Like we established earlier, it’s their God given right.
Elon has had tremendous help from the US government in the form of subsidies, helping vault Tesla to the giant it is today. This history of governmental help makes his desire to topple a democracy over nationalization extra ghoulish. But, luckily for the Bolivian people, MAS was able to defeat the opposition party and U.S. corporate interest along with it. Louis Arce of Movement Toward Socialism is now the president of Bolivia. The people spoke and decided they wanted the future of Bolivia to remain in their hands, and away from Elon and the goblin hoard of tech CEO’s fiending for lithium.
The Bolivian election and peaceful transition of power is a bright spot in the bleak plain of existence we’ve all been living in. Let’s all hope it’s a good omen. We need some good things coming down the pipe here or else people are going to start behaving poorly, and God knows we’ve all had enough of that.