Posts that are critical of Musk do get flagged quite often in my observation, e.g. posts around various pieces of Twitter drama caused by Musk. That part is intentional by HN, as these posts tend to produce rather low quality discussions and in the end are almost always the same. I don't particularly like how this rule results in a kind of criticism shield for Musk and similar cases, but I understand why HN has it.

This case is different in my opinion and should not be flagged because it is about a new topic that I would consider interesting on its own. Of course it'll get bogged down a bit like all discussions with Musk as part of the topic. But by far not as bad as posts about Musk himself.