Doctor Doom

 I can remember when I first encountered a Tesla in the wild. My son was working as an "explainer" at the Chabot Space And Science Center, and as a special treat for their young employees, the museum had an early version Roadster up for the nerds to look at. I happened to be there, having driven up the hill in my hybrid car and immediately began wondering how quickly I might be able to exchange my Prius for a Tesla. 

Did I mention that I am a public school teacher? That dream died hard when I discovered that the base price was just a little below what we paid, and continued to make payments on, for our house. 

At this point, my objections to the cars made by this mysterious entrepreneur were strictly financial. If his goal was to save the planet, why was he making vehicles that were out of the price range of the average public school teacher. For example. 

Over the next few years, the man who presented himself as the mind behind Tesla made a cameo in Iron Man 2, in which he pitches the fictional self-describe "genius, billionaire, playboy, philanthropist" plans for an electric jet. At this point, Tony Stark and Elon Musk were both essentially fictional. Their exploits were the stuff of legend.

Then one of them decided to use his powers for evil instead of good. No, I am not talking about the spoiler alert in which Robert Downey Jr. will be playing Doctor Doom in the upcoming Avengers: Doomsday. I am referring to the moment when Musky the World Saver morphed into Mushy the Oligarch.

It is entirely possible that Elon Musk was never anything more than the hateful misanthrope we are currently watching as his empire crumbles around him. His most recent attempt to conquer outer space was put on hold when Starship 10's launch was delayed. Again. Which is probably better than just shooting another rocket up into the sky and watching it blow up. If only he would have used that kind of discretion when it came time to unleash his vision of an electric truck. Delaying the release of a stainless steel brick held together primarily with glue until it could be determined if anyone wanted to spend a hundred thousand dollars on it might have fared better than the lot full of unwanted "futuristic pickups" that are currently cluttering the factory lots.

What to do? Mister Mush has a plan! Raise the price an additional fifteen thousand dollars.

Meanwhile, his threat of a third party after he was kicked out of the MAGAts has been met with a hush that can only be described as appropriate. He may eventually have to sell his DOGE chainsaw just to get a lawyer to draw up yet another non-disclosure agreement with his seemingly endless list of baby mamas. As users flee Twitter, or as he so cleverly rebranded it, X, fewer and fewer folks around this country seem interested in his racist, transphobic, hate machine.

Please understand that I look forward to a playboy billionaire who wants to save the planet. Sincerely. For now, we'll just have to wait for whatever the next whim Mushy wants to throw at us.

So we can duck.