Method to Musk's Madness?

Many observers assume that Elon Musk has been unraveling a bit lately, because that's what it looks like.

But we've got to remember that Musk has occasionally been pretty good at putting over a public perception. Remember, for example, when people thought he was a nice guy who invented all sorts of stuff and didn't care about money and just wanted to save the planet? That was because Musk wanted people to believe that.

Maybe Musk's recent announcement that he has switched from Democrat to Republican, claiming that the Democratic Party has become "the party of division and hate," is just more calculated shaping of his public image.

 

Maybe it's part of his exit strategy from Tesla. It would fit in with a time-honoured tradition of people moving from Left to Right politically, and then proclaiming that their younger selves meant well, but were hopelessly naive. In Musk's case, the stereotypical headshaking over his younger librul self could go something like: "Once I, too, believed that mankind could survive without oil. And I tried my best to make that hopelessly naive dream a reality [...]" And then he becomes a US Senator from Montana, taking some of Montana's wealthy Democrats with him into the GOP. 

Either that, or he really is going completely crazy. Because, Republican and the owner/Dear Leader of one of the world's largest EV manufacturers at the same time -- that's not a good fit.

It didn't occur to me until just this moment that perhaps Musk has announced that he's a Republican precisely because it's a bad fit with leading Tesla. And because he senses that he may have pumped about as much money out of Tesla as he can -- if he can sell his Tesla shares before they become relatively worthless.