What Blows Up, Must Come Down

 Inquiring minds would like to know: How is it that Tesla made an overture to the State Department last year to produce four hundred million dollars worth of armored Cybertrucks? Obviously it would be an even bigger deal of it was earlier this year that the proposal had been tossed out on the porch, as they say, to see if the cat would lick it up. That big, fat, surly cat who doesn't tend to eat healthy things in the first place. 

Senator Richard Blumenthal decided to check in with the obviously traumatized Secretary of State, Marco Rubio. This quandary comes as kind of a package deal along with the conflict of interest that exists in a contract between Starlink, a company owned by the same guy who owns Tesla, and Verizon concerning a contract with the Federal Aviation Administration. 

All of which of course stinks on ice. 

The challenge I am having is the way my view of Elongated Mush has evolved over the past few years. There was most definitely a time when I saw this renegade electric car manufacturer as a revolutionary. Someone who would lead us all out of the darkness and into the light of an energy-efficient new day. That time has passed. Whatever hope I might have once gleaned from the existence of an electric car company that was going to save our planet was solidly extinguished by the time he had shifted his focus to launching us all into space. Nothing left here to contaminate. Time to go wreck a new planet. 

Right about the time he tore up Twitter. 

And started pouring money and attention into the aforementioned fat orange cat's campaign for president. Hundreds of millions of dollars. This came about just after he appeared on stage to promote the indestructibility of his cleverly named Cybertruck. Since then, his rockets and trucks and all manner of other investments have continued to blow up, washing away that faint patina of hope that had once been connected to him. 

But don't just take it from me. Take it from Elvira, Mistress of the Dark. Elvira, also known as Cassandra Peterson, decided to donate her 2015 Tesla to NPR in hopes of raising a little money and getting a little attention to the backward progress being offered by "the world's richest man." 

Ladies and gentlemen, we have come to a point in our history when a hokey-horror-movie-host boasts more credibility than "the richest man in the world." 

Sleep tight, America.