The reaction to Elon Musk’s launching his used Tesla electric Roadster sports car into interplanetary Space on a Falcon Heavy. And, why not? Not only does the successful flight of the newest heavy-lift rocket hold such promise for a new age of space exploration, but the image of Starman at the controls of the sports car as the Earth recedes in the rearview mirror is so utterly cool that it almost defies description.

However, not everyone is thrilled. The combination of space exploration, a swashbuckling billionaire, and smart marketing has triggered some people on the left.

Musk, they claim, must be stopped or at least made to pay heavy taxes for the privilege of launching sports cars or anything else into space.

Musk needs to pay his fair share of taxes.

First up, we have a piece in “In These Times” with the rather provocative title of “The Case for Nationalizing Elon Musk.” In fact, the title is clickbait and the author doesn’t really mean that the government needs to seize SpaceX and Tesla like a bunch of hopped up developing world socialists ready to get the capitalist exploiters.

The author does go down the Elizabeth Warren rabbit hole by claiming that Musk “did not build that” and that he benefits from a hefty amount of government subsidies. While Musk has taken a lot of money from the government, it can be argued that by developing cheap access to space, electric cars, and other cool technologies, he returns quite a bit of value without having to suffer a hefty tax hike.

The idea is to keep taxes as low as possible so that people like Elon Musk can prosper. Besides, according to Bloomberg, Musk paid almost $600 million in income taxes in 2016.

With all the sick and starving children in the world…

The UK Guardian has a more direct attack on Musk from left field, as it were. The world is filled with misery, the Guardian piece states, with sick children who need to be healed before Elon Musk is allowed to launch another sports car into the heavens.

And don’t get the author started on Musk’s dream of a Mars colony.

After all, if the world did not allow for such gross social inequality, no one would be in the position to fund a private space program. After all, Musk’s wealth does not really belong to him. It belongs to us. The author of the Guardian piece even quotes from that horrible, racist song by Gil-Scott Heron “Whitey on the Moon” to make his point that Musk must be stopped before he launches anything else.
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