The Daily Signal - Victor Davis Hanson: What More Can Musk Do?

Episode Date: March 20, 2025

Elon Musk’s SpaceX successfully brought home stranded astronauts after months of delay. Musk has surpassed Boeing and even NASA, yet political narratives overshadow his success. So what’s causing this unpopularity? Victor Davis Hanson breaks down this phenomenon on today’s episode of “Victor Davis Hanson: In His Own Words.” “ Go back two or three years ago and [Musk] was an iconic Renaissance figure, we were told, by the very people who are now calling him disloyal or purely or not completely an American. This is one of the strangest phenomenon of our time.” The Daily Signal cannot continue to tell stories, like this one, without the support of our viewers: https://secured.dailysignal.com/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Elon Musk is in the news again. It should be a triumphant news accounts of what he's done. This huge starship rocket, the largest and most powerful rocket in history, launched successfully with its dragon capsule. And it's bringing back the stranded astronauts that were supposed to be only their days. And for a variety of reasons we can't get into, some of them political perhaps, they didn't get a chance to return for months. In other words, Elon Musk has developed.

developed the most successful space program in the history of space travel. He's superseded Boeing that couldn't pull it off. He superseded NASA itself. So this should be again a celebratory moment. Instead, he is at the height of his own popularity. Hello, this is Victor Davis Hanson for the Daily Signal. Elon Musk is in the news again. It should be a triumphant news accounts of what he's done. This huge starship rocket, the largest and most powerful rocket in history, launched successfully with its dragon capsule and it's docked at the space station successfully to drop off an international crew of four and to bring back the stranded astronauts that were supposed to be only their days, and for a variety of reasons we can't get into,

some of them political, perhaps, they didn't get a chance to return for months. In other words, Elon Musk has developed the most successful space program in the history of space travel. He's superseded Boeing that couldn't pull it off. He's superseded NASA itself. So this should be, again, a celebratory moment. Instead, he is, at the height of his on popularity, recently former vice president candidate, Tim Walts on the Democratic ticket, has been touring the country. He's called, associated Elon Musk being a Nazi fascist. He said the salute was a Nazi salute. I don't think it was at all. But more importantly, he recently said that Elon Musk was a foreign-born South African Nipo baby.

NEPO baby, nepotism baby. The vast treasure that Elon Musk has created did not come from his father. It came from his brilliance in SpaceX, taking over Twitter and reopening social media. Tesla, the first and most important and most successful of the electric vehicle industry. And of course, Starlink that gave Internet, and I'm speaking on Starlink as right now, gave internet to people who live in rural areas such as my own. He didn't inherit anything. He inherited a slight fortune, perhaps, but he did it all on his own.

Mr. Walts, are you comparing your behavior, your record in the late campaign with Elon Musk? Almost everything you said was contradicted. It was untrue. Your whole life story was fabricated. Your rule in Minnesota was disaster. And now you're, you're descending into xenophobia and suggesting that a U.S. citizen is South African with dual loyalties just because you disagree with what he's doing. So what is causing this on popularity?

At Desjardin, we speak business. We speak startup funding and comprehensive game plans. We've mastered made-to-measure growth and expansion advice. And we can talk your ear off about transferring your business when the time comes. Because at Desjardin business, we speak the... same language you do. Business. So join the more than 400,000 Canadian entrepreneurs who already count on us and contact Desjardin today. We'd love to talk, business. We know what it is. Elon Musk is applying his talents. He's not being diplomatic about it to reducing this vast

federal spending that is threatening to bankrupt the country, where $36 trillion in debt, we're borrowing $1.7 trillion per year. The interest alone is costing us $3 billion a day, and no one is doing anything. So he is going through the entire federal budget in hopes that he can find a trillion dollars, and with increased revenues given an economic incentive, just maybe in a year or two, for the first time since the millennium, we'll be able to balance the budget. At the same time, Walts was sounding off about Musk, former astronaut and now U.S. Senator from Arizona, Senator Kelly, was cutting a video in which he drives up

in his Tesla says he wants no more of it because Elon Musk is a A-S-S-Hole. And more importantly, he says that Elon Musk is cutting Social Security and Medicare. He's not. Health benefits and so Medicare, he's not. There's no evidence he's doing that unless that somebody brings it to his attention that there is massive fraud. Even Barack Obama said there was fraud in Medicare and Social Security. But then he made this performance art video and then he shows his new car, which is a Chevy suburban. I think they get about 15 or 16 miles to the gallon. What did that Tesla that he is driving and he used to virtue signal was a car of the future

given that small carbon footprint? What happened to it? Did it change? Did it all of a sudden not work? No. He's blaming the car. But he's already paid the money. The money is already in the coffers of Tesla. So it's an, and why use the profanity, which seems to be characteristic of the Democratic Party? And finally, it's getting very, it's getting to a very dangerous quescendo of hate. Go on the internet. There is now an industry of people posting photos of their cyber truck, their Y model, their X model being keyed and vandalized by young people in an organized fashion.

There are chargers, Tesla charges that are being destroyed. There's Tesla dealers that are being attacked. All against Elon Musk. go back two or three years ago and he was an iconic renaissance figure we were told by the very people who are now calling him disloyal or not purely or not completely an American. This is one of the strangest phenomenon of our time. And it should cease. And the reason it should cease is if this rhetoric continues and this organized, it really is a domestic terrorist campaign against Tesla increases,

somebody's going to do something stupid because they are low in the bar of what's permissible. We know what that stupid is. It's a direct attack on Elon Musk himself. This is Victor Davis-Hansson for The Daily Signal. Thank you for watching today's podcast. And for more news like that, subscribe to the Daily Signal. Maybe you can check out my own website at victorhansson.com for podcast, lectures, ultra-series behind a paywall, but more importantly, just daily columns that are accessible and free to everyone.

Thank you very much.