Devoted to helping humans evolve to smarter, more efficient, clean fuel and transport systems, Elon Musk attracts a gaggle of unfounded criticism from fake articles and authors who hate progress and/or work for the fossil fuel industry. Apparently some people can think up nothing more productive to do than make up fake news stories to throw aspersions at those who are actually improving the world. Bloomberg took the time to investigate and identify some of those posting fake facts and stories here: Elon Musk vs the Trolls:
On Sept. 2 the conservative web magazine the Federalist published an article titled “Elon Musk Continues to Blow Up Taxpayer Money With Falcon 9.” The author was identified as Shepard Stewart. Two days earlier, the Stewart byline appeared on a piece on the Libertarian Republic website called “Here’s How Elon Musk Stole $5 Billion in Taxpayer Dollars.” Two days before that, the Liberty Conservative site carried a Stewart article headlined “Elon Musk: Faux Free Marketeer and National Disgrace.”
”Funny thing, though: Shepard Stewart isn’t a real person. “Definitely a fake,” says Gavin Wax, editor-in-chief of the Liberty Conservative. A chagrined Wax says the “Stewart” character “went totally dark on us after we published him.” Wax discovered that a photograph “Stewart” uses online appears to be an altered version of a former Twitter executive’s LinkedIn headshot.
Musk attracts an unusually large and varied number of shrouded online attacks, including phony op-ed pieces, websites with shadowy backers, and individuals who hide behind aliases. “These are tools used by those who don’t have facts on their side…”
The bottom line: Elon Musk attracts a wide array of real and fake online antagonists criticizing his work on electric cars, rockets, and solar panels.
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