On Feb. 3, Elon Musk tweeted, “We spent the weekend feeding USAID into the wood chipper.” An agency created by an Act of Congress was dismantled by Elon Musk and his fanatical disciples.
Dr. Brooke Nichols of Boston University has set up an Impact Metrics Dashboard which estimates that nearly 400,000 children around the world have died so far as a result of the funding being discontinued. I was a Peace Corps volunteer in Kenya and have worked on strengthening health systems across sub-Saharan Africa. It has been heartbreaking watching these widely predicted consequences play out.
I see Teslas all over Oak Park and I know that people enjoy their Teslas for a number of reasons, from the driving experience to the fact that they are lowering their carbon emissions. However, Musk is the CEO of the company (and has made himself the highly visible face of the company), and when I see someone driving a Tesla, it strikes me as callous indifference to nearly 400,000 children around the world who have died so far. A number that rises every single day. Some people have put bumper stickers on their car saying that they bought their vehicle “before Elon went crazy” or that they are “anti-Elon.” I do not believe that that absolves them of their responsibility to act in a way that shows empathy for the suffering that Musk has inflicted on communities around the world. There are other electric vehicle companies that make high-performance cars.
I hope that Oak Park’s Tesla drivers will think of the children who are dying every day and consider whether they are comfortable driving a car that provides a tacit endorsement of the man who took such sick pleasure in dismantling their health-care systems.
Daniel Mokrauer-Madden
Oak Park