I think you are greatly over-estimating Musk's concern about his workers "starving."

I don't think Musk is an evil person, but everything about his past actions and his personality has shown he is singularly focused on his big dreams: electrifying the automobile industry and getting to Mars. He sees these closures as a threat to his dream, not to his workers.

Again, I don't really think there is anything wrong with this. It takes people with unique drive like this to bring about big change. But it's important to not confuse his drive for something it's not.

It is possible for people to have big dreams and also deeply care about their responsibility to folks that work for them. I’m not sure why everything always has to be mutually exclusive when it comes to intentions.

Because some simple Google searches show complaints of workers being overworked and poorly treated for years at the expense of worker health. In fairness, Musk himself was clearly overworked and pursued his dream at the expense of his own health. But there is a lesson here for all of us in startup land: be very clear about what is really going on if you're willing to sacrifice your own health and relationships for someone else's dream.

I don’t want to play word games but you clearly said he was singularly focused on his dreams. I was merely pointing out that painting things so black-and-white is unfair.

> without money, those workers are going to starve

The workers should be getting Pandemic UI through the end of July 2020, so no starving would happen, the factory can stay closed for another two months (if solely considering the workers’ pay)

Tesla won’t go bankrupt if they wait 1-2 weeks to restart operations. They’re sitting on a huge cash pile and have other factories that aren’t closed anyway.

This "thought process" can be applied to literally every business in America. What makes Tesla special? Other than having an outspoken celebrity CEO with a strong cult of personality at the helm who has gotten more and more unhinged over the past couple of years (I want to believe as a result of stress, but I may be giving too much benefit of the doubt).

> This "thought process" can be applied to literally every business in America.

Pretty sure that's the point. If Amazon can have warehouse workers delivering non-essential goods without restrictions, why can't Tesla be manufacturing without restrictions?

> What makes Tesla special?

Pretty sure that's what Elon is arguing. What makes Tesla special in that it's the only car manufacturer being restricted?

They aren’t special — just like the other car manufacturers, Tesla management was working with county health officials to make sure it had the necessary procedures and practices in place to reopen safely. Elon just got impatient.

He has threatened to move production elsewhere though, so how much does the really care about the workers?

That might be how he's justifying it, but looking from the outside and judging by his words and behavior it just seems like he really wants to get back to business and complete his vision / dreams.

I think he's probably considered some worker safety aspects of reopening production, and I also agree in reality with the precautions taken the risk is probably low. I also don't think worker safety is high on his list of priorities; more of a necessary thing that needs to be dealt with to get to his actual goal.

You're missing a critical statement in that logic:

- without working, people cannot get money

This is not a physical law of nature, it's how American society has chosen to be, and if there were political will, society could choose to modify that "rule". We've just collectively convinced ourselves that it is axiomatic.

It's really too bad that this whole pandemic hasn't sparked much conversation about how we could structure things so people don't starve when they aren't doing this ritual called work.

I'd argue that in its more general form, its absolutely axiomatic. Humans are mortal, in order to preserve our life, we have to put in a considerable amount of effort. There is no organization of society that negates this truth.

Maintaining life at our current standard of living requires an extraordinary amount of work. And if you're going to use society's resources to survive then you should contribute back to society by working, its not a "ritual".

The idea that working is somehow an artificial constraint is completely wrong, and leads to utopian thinking, not actual possible policy alternatives.