Elon Musk is a guy most of us have an opinion about, one way or the other. But before we get to the strange part, let's recall who he actually is. He's the fellow behind Tesla, SpaceX, Starlink, Neuralink, The Boring Company, the AI company xAI, and X, the old Twitter. And he's practically family. He was born in South Africa, but his mom is from Regina; he carries a Canadian passport, and he spent two years at Queen's in Kingston before heading south. He made it in America the way a lot of ambitious people do, by showing up with nothing and outworking everybody.Now look at what that work turned into. Tesla alone employed 134,785 people at the end of 2025, and thousands more work at SpaceX, X, Neuralink, and the tunnel people. @Grok estimates the total number of employees at 160,000. In July 2026, Tesla built its 10 millionth electric car. Say what you want about the man, but he did more than any single person alive to make electric cars normal instead of a science project.Then there's space. SpaceX's workhorse rocket, the Falcon 9, has now flown more than 700 times, and landing boosters back on land or floating barges, which used to be laugh-out-loud impossible, is now so routine that SpaceX had landed Falcon boosters 675 times by October 30. Above your head right now are more than 11,000 Starlink satellites, serving 13.6 million subscribers in more than 160 markets. A 2018 NASA estimate put the Space Shuttle’s cost at about $54,500 USD per kilogram to low Earth orbit. At SpaceX’s published 2024 launch price, a Falcon 9 filled to its stated maximum capacity for low Earth orbit would cost about $3,060 USD per kilogram. When Russia invaded Ukraine, Starlink kept that country talking: more than 42,000 terminals in Ukrainian hands by the spring of 2023, keeping power crews, doctors, and soldiers connected. And Neuralink, the one that sounds like science fiction, had enrolled 21 people in trials worldwide by January 2026 and has helped paralyzed people move a cursor and even drive a wheelchair with their thoughts.So that's the resume. Jobs, cars, rockets, internet for farmers and war zones, and hope for people who can't move their arms. Which brings us to the strange part, because a whole lot of people, especially on the political left, can't stand the guy. Let's go down this wormhole. In 2016, Musk was a darling of the environmental crowd, the man saving the planet one battery at a time. Then he bought Twitter and threw the doors open, with the sole purpose of securing free expression. Then he threw his money and his megaphone behind Donald Trump, and he ran the DOGE project that cut deep into the US federal workforce in search of waste and corruption. .People are allowed to dislike those actions, and I won't get into their motivations here. But the polls reflect it: in June 2025, an AP-NORC poll found that 57% of US adults viewed him unfavourably, with most Democrats in that camp. Protests under the "Tesla Takedown" banner showed up outside showrooms, and some turned ugly, with arson charges filed over fires at Tesla dealerships.Now watch what happened after the November 3 midterms, when Democrats took back Congress. Matt Binder, a “journalist” with a big following, posted this: "arrest Elon Musk, seize his factories, nationalize SpaceX." Two point three million views. Thirty-four thousand likes..Jamie Metzl, an author and former Clinton administration official, called Musk "a nefarious force in American politics" and promised congressional hearings with subpoena power. .Meanwhile, a Swedish account asked the plain question out loud: when did Musk become a hate object for the left, when he's done more for the climate, free speech, and Ukraine than almost any private person alive? "Can someone actually explain the logic?" It's a fair question, and I've yet to hear a fair answer. Because there isn’t one. This defies logic, common sense, and all of North America’s self-interest.Here's the thing. You don't have to like Elon Musk's politics. You don't have to like that he bought a social media company, or who he voted for, or that he took a chainsaw to government waste, duplication, and corruption. Those are opinions, and honest people can argue them over coffee. But somewhere along the line, disagreeing with the man turned into wanting him arrested, his life's work seized, his companies nationalized, his name dragged before Congress. And for what? No charge. No crime anybody can name. Just politics.A fellow builds the clean cars we asked for, the rockets NASA couldn't build, the internet that kept Ukraine in the fight, and implants that give paralyzed people a piece of their lives back. Well over 150,000 people get paycheques from companies he built. And the response from a large and loud slice of the political spectrum is to treat him like a criminal for voting the wrong way and saying it out loud.
