Elon Musk becomes Twitter laughingstock after Bolivian socialist movement returns to power

[marmar]

(Salon) Tesla CEO Elon Musk became an internet punchline on Monday after the party of Evo Morales, a left-wing Bolivian president whom Musk intimated that America had every right to overthrow, was restored to power by the Bolivian people.

The redemption at the ballot box of Morales' party, Movement Toward Socialism, was seen as a rebuke of the role of American elites in helping to oust Morales last year. Why this political battle became a viral moment for media pundits to own the brash billionaire CEO, however, is a longer story.

Recall that then-President Evo Morales won the Bolivian election last year, facing off against far-right forces backed by the American government. In that election, however, US-backed watchdog groups intentionally cast doubt over his victory to try to instill uncertainty in the democratic process and undermine his party's claim to power, something that should seem familiar to Americans now that Trump is poised to do the same. The elite media consensus that the election was "rigged" was also aided by the propaganda campaign waged by a US Army veteran who created a vast botnet on Twitter that sent out huge numbers of tweets trying to push the narrative that Morales' opponent won fair and square.

This week, Morales watched as the Movement Toward Socialism party achieved almost certain victory in elections held on Sunday. Morales himself is not en route to be Bolivia's new leader — that distinction belongs to his former finance minister, Luis Arce, as Morales is in exile in Argentina. Morales himself claimed at the time that he was pushed out by forces which opposed him because of his Aymara background (he was Bolivia's first president to come from its indigenous community, which comprises nearly half of Bolivia's total population) and because of his attempts to nationalize Bolivia's lithium.

This is where Musk enters the story. Musk's business empire is reliant on cheap lithium, a fact which some saw connected to a tweet from the SpaceX CEO, who gloated after Morales' ouster last year: "We will coup whoever we want! Deal with it." Though Musk himself states that his companies get their lithium from Australia, global lithium prices and access are intimately connected to nationalization (or privatization) policies in countries with vast reserves, like Bolivia. ................(more)

https://www.salon.com/2020/10/20/elon-musk-becomes-twitter-laughingstock-after-bolivian-socialist-movement-returns-to-power/

[dchill]

1. Elon Musk. Failed coup plotter.

[Laelth]

2. Good. I don't like Musk f-ing around in Bolivia.

If he wants their lithium, he needs to pay a fair price for it and insure the safety and prosperity of the Bolivian workers who are mining it for him.

-Laelth