You're right, they're probably not critical enough.

Do you think it's easy to be "fair" to someone who continually spouts misinformation, falsehoods, and retweets or reply-boosts such things on an almost daily basis?

They were all “fair” to him until he switched politics.

Musk's donations to political parties is public (leaving aside SuperPAC and other funding being hidden).

He has NEVER donated more to the Democrats than the Republicans. Like most billionaires he donates to both parties. Historically, he donates ten times more to the Republicans and the Democrats.

Nothing about Musk has ever seemed "liberal". Just convenient. He smokes weed on shows, but if you work for one of his companies you'll be fired if you don't piss clean. Anti-taxes. Anti-regulation/oversight.

How has he ever been democrat-leaning in any meaningful way?

> None of the writers of Ars Technica are anything like fair to Musk.

True. For some reason they keep minimising the damage he is doing to both science and democracy.

What is your standard of fairness? This seems eminently fair: Musk lied for political reasons and people who care about that whole objective reality thing are criticizing him for it. He’s arguably the second-most powerful man in the world right now and craves attention like few others, so it seems quite unfair to say he shouldn’t be the subject of public criticism when he certainly doesn’t apply that standard to his own behaviour.