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Re:Elon Musk reopening Tesla factory despite Alameda County ... by dragonwriter on Monday May 11, 2020 @10:28PM (#23149965)
> It's a reference to Ayn Rand's book Atlas Shrugged. It's sort of a libertarian bible.

Objectivist more than libertarian; Objectivism overlaps with (especially American) both conservativism and right-libertarianism, but is its own distinct thing.

> OP is suggesting that Musk is doing the same thing, but performatively, in other words he's pretending to be super concerned with "getting back to work" but really he cares about making profits.

Objectivists would, I think, reject the distinction between “getting back to work” and “makong profits” as goals. “Making profits” is the natural goal of “getting to work” (independently of the “back”) part, so to suggest that an expressed desire for the latter is “performative” because the ultimate goal is the “former” is failing to understand the basic nature of reality and, more specifically, work.

Re:Elon Musk reopening Tesla factory despite Alameda County ... by Olreich on Tuesday May 12, 2020 @07:09AM (#23152722)
Work doesn’t inherently mean profits. Labor can be pursued for many reasons, exercise being the next most popular reason to perform work. The most popular one is actually to continue living, which in many cases isn’t all that profitable, what with all our expensive needs. You can also labor for pleasure, for love, and for a host of other reasons.

Framing work as only-profit-seeking encourages a viewpoint aligned with shareholder values, which I don’t think is a great idea.