It’s kind of wild to think now, but Stephen King and Elon Musk used to have fairly light-hearted interactions on X (then Twitter).
Back in 2019, they were talking about the horror author owning a Tesla. Now, seven years later, there’s no love lost between them whatsoever.
King and Musk’s latest clash came on Sunday, after the Tesla CEO branded Democratic candidate for the US Senate in Texas, James Talarico, a “far-left extremist.”
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King reshared Musk’s post and added his thoughts as to why Musk may be targeting Talarico in particular.
“Elon Musk is afraid of Talarico because he [Musk] has a lot of business in Texas,” responded King. “It has nothing to do with principles or programs; for Musk, it’s all about the Benjamins.”
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Musk, clearly prickled at being criticised by a man he once described as “one of the most creative people on Earth”, hit back.
“Your mental model outside of short-sighted tribalism is pathetically stupid,” he wrote.
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It seems pretty clear that Musk doesn’t like Talarico, who is currently in a very close midterms race with Republican Attorney General Ken Paxton. Filings have shown that the world’s richest man contributed $150 million to the Texas race in support of Republicans, leading to Talarico calling him out directly at a recent rally and saying “Texas is not for sale.”
Musk, meanwhile, has a large base of operations in Texas. It’s easy to imagine why he’d want the state represented by someone matching his political ideology.
