That was quick.
After a regulatory filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission showed that Soros Fund Management sold the entire $16 million stake in Tesla
TSLA,
+0.81%
that it had bought last year, Musk took to the social-media platform he owns to attack the 92-year-old.
First — without any apparent provocation — he tweeted a comparison between Soros and Magneto, an X-Men comic-book character who, as the name implies, can generate and control magnetic fields.
Musk didn’t offer an explanation, though it’s probably not about Soros’s work with magnets. The comic-book character’s backstory is, like that of Soros, as a Holocaust survivor. Magento’s personality has been described as the Malcolm X to Professor X’s Martin Luther King, and a writer for X-Men compared Magneto to terrorist–turned–Israel prime minister Menachem Begin.
Brian Krassenstein, who along with his twin brother are left-leaning writers and entrepreneurs, tweeted that Magneto’s experiences shaped his perspective as well as depth and empathy, and said Soros gets attacked nonstop “for his good intentions which some Americans think are bad merely because they disagree with this political affiliations.”
Musk replied that Soros wants “to erode the very fabric of civilization. Soros hates humanity.”
Musk didn’t reply to Krassenstein’s asking him on what basis he had made that claim.
Soros funds the Open Society Foundations, which funds often-progressive organizations around the world, often aimed at protecting press freedom and civic rights.
Krassenstein’s brother Ed was left defending Musk while also backing Soros. “If you are going to claim someone hates humanity, I feel it needs more explanation. That’s a pretty big accusation. The funny thing is I believe Elon loves humanity. Perhaps that’s why this is all so more disturbing to me,” he tweeted at one user.
Others were not as sympathetic. Yair Rosenberg, a staff writer for the Atlantic, made the point that Soros and Magneto had entirely different worldviews.
As for Tesla’s stock, it has gone up 35% this year but is down 34% over the last 52 weeks.
The Soros fund also sharply reduced its stake in EV truck maker Rivian Automotive
RIVN,
-3.35%
in the year’s first quarter.
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