For a long time Elon Musk went to great pains to present himself as a kind of utopian thinker at the forefront of science and social change, a proponent of climate change policies, LGBT+ acceptance, and a feminist. Of course, the ketamine-addled techbro oligarch with a range of controversial and alt-right political views is a far cry from the Elon the world used to know.
People can change, but Elon’s new grift is extremely lucrative and gets him a spot in the Oval Office to be in the room where it happens every time big decisions are made, so it’s easy to see why he went with his new approach. Yet every so often he does pay lip service to one of his former ideals, even when it makes him look every inch the hypocrite that he’s being.
A posted to X, Musk’s social media platform, with a quote from Musk talking about how “being a mom is a real job,” followed by a picture of Musk with his own mom. Musk replied to the tweet with a single word — “absolutely” — showing his for the sentiment.
Absolutely https://t.co/J9VfphCTgo
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) March 8, 2025
On the face of it, this is a nice statement that will resonate with many people. Here’s the thing, though. As Emmeline Pankhurst and her group of suffragettes said, it’s “deeds not words” that really matter, and on that front, Musk falls down at the very first hurdle. After acquiring Twitter (now X), Musk embarked on a slash and burn approach, cutting employee numbers and firing vital workers. He also reshaped the parental leave policy, slashing it from 20 weeks to just two, in a massive blow to workers planning a new arrival.
Although Musk later walked back on the cut, granting up to 16 weeks — only for birthing mothers — of parental leave at the most, this figure remains well below the previous policy. For some employees, the parental leave offered is a paltry and offensive 3 weeks. This is not at all indicative of “major respect” for mothers or parents in general, but when you dig into Elon’s personal affairs, it gets even worse.
Musk has at least 13 children with different women. Two of the mothers of his children are former partners: Justine Wilson, Musk’s first wife, and Grimes. The others are women Musk has allegedly contracted to bear his children, or to provide eggs for him to use with a surrogate, sometimes while he is in a relationship.
Despite going to great lengths to father large numbers of children, Musk doesn’t seem to have a lot of respect for the mothers themselves. His former partner, Grimes, a musician with whom Musk was romantically linked in a messy relationship spanning several years, had to take to X to try and Elon $2760 dollars in monthly child for his children.
This is par for the course with Musk. Whatever Elon says, it’s important to look at what he does — and what he does shows no respect for mothers whatsoever.
Published: Mar 9, 2025 02:08 pm