Man, I don’t know what right wingers y’all are talking about.
I come from a super right wing family and all them MFs think this is a bad idea too (though to be fair, they’re def on the conspiracy theory “everything is to get a microchip in my blood/brain” side of things).
Well someone is gargling elons cock, and it’s not lefties. So you figure out the math and that’s who they’re talking about.
Is a centrist anyone who says “I’m not into politics but (right wing propaganda)” because that’s unironically been my experience so far.
I suppose my instinctive reaction isn’t to assume someone’s politics would determine how they react to Musk.
My first real assumption would be that tech/engineering types are the only ones who’d really think about him at all (in both directions). Like, I do have an uncle who occasionally brings him up whenever theirs news on SpaceX’s rockets (though usually this gets brought up in the context of “new technology sucks” and “what was wrong with the rockets that carried up Voyager” and such).
So yeah, I really don’t think I’d describe anyone as “gargling Elon’s cock” except those who still have good will for Tesla.
I come from a super-right wing family too (but from Europe) and they really are in love Elon because it’s like “a dog being out of control” in the billionaire group, the one who is brave enough to go against the rules, defying the “cancel culture” and the unidirectional thinking imposed by political correctness.
Obviously I don’t approve of any of it, let it be clear… Lemmy for me is a sort of “therapy group” where I find relief from that toxic environment.
That’s interesting to hear. I wouldn’t have expected Europeans would have thought about ol’ Elon that much.
In general I would argue that he has a good reputation, due to good marketing mostly. A great lot of people see him as some sort of “illuminated visionary” who fosters innovation for the Good™ and will save humanity with SpaceX, Tesla, etc. [I don’t agree personally to any of it but that’s another story].
Honestly I haven’t heard any of my right wing coworkers etc… talk about this particular company, but I have heard a lot of elon worship from them. IE I hear a lot of them talk about how he’s gone so pro free speach with twitter. (and they tend to ignore me when I point out that he’s censoring every bit as much as the old twitter, he’s just nicer to the nazis and less nice to the left.
Ugh, yeah, that is a point of frustration I have with the family.
For them, it’s not so much “look what Musk is doing” so much as “look at how much better Twitter’s gotten”, which is particularly ripe cause none of them even use the platform. As I think on it, that probably means the big Fox talking heads are saying things like that.
I never got into Twitter myself (just never really understood / took to the format), which is kind of a shame cause I’d really like to be supporting Mastodon in this years surgance of the Fediverse.
But do they hate the guy? As much as Bill Gates?
It’s like when Trump shat on veterans and the rightwingers didn’t care.