The NY Times has an article up today about the growing number of threats that Elon Musk faces and the increasingly large security force he uses to keep the crazies at bay.

The world’s richest man, with a net worth of more than $240 billion, he once fielded largely harmless calls and messages from ardent fans but now regularly deals with stalkers and death threats, according to police documents and internal Tesla records. While many high-profile people face threats, Mr. Musk has transformed his own protection in recent years to deal with the change, expanding an already robust personal security beyond that of other billionaires.

His security team now operates like a mini-Secret Service, and he is guarded more like a head of state than a business executive, security experts said...

“The probability that a homicidal maniac will try to kill you is proportionate to how many homicidal maniacs hear your name,” he said. “So they hear my name a lot — I’m like, ‘OK, I’m on the list,’ you know.” He added that this had forced him to be more standoffish to the public.

On the same earnings call, Musk mentioned that two different assassination plots against him had been stopped in about 8 months. He later repeated that on X:

Dangerous times ahead.

Two people (separate occasions) have already tried to kill me in the past 8 months. They were arrested with guns about 20 mins drive from Tesla HQ in Texas.

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 14, 2024

There's a subtle effort here to portray the threats Musk faces as "innocuous" though even the examples offered don't sound that innocuous to me.

Many people trying to reach Mr. Musk were innocuous, documents and recordings of phone calls obtained by The Times show. One woman left a two-minute voice mail several years ago at one of Mr. Musk’s companies, referring to him as “Daddy Musk” and claiming they had spoken telepathically for the last year.

“I can’t wait for you to propose to me in outer space on our station,” she said.

Yikes! But this strange person probably is the least scary thing Musk is facing.

Since Tesla opened its Austin factory in early 2022, the Travis County Sheriff’s Office has responded to eight “terroristic threat” incidents there, with at least two aimed directly at Mr. Musk, records show.

That's in addition to five terroristic threats at the Fremont factory in California and who knows how many at the plant in Germany which was attacked by a mob of climate nuts earlier this year.

I can't even imagine what Elon Musk thinks when he sees what is happening at the Tesla factory in Germany

They call themselves activists, but they are terrorists

I stand with Tesla & Elon pic.twitter.com/EKsRdR9jf9

— Dima Zeniuk (@DimaZeniuk) May 10, 2024

The strangest thing about the article is what it doesn't say. There's no real mention of the waves of negative media attention Musk has received, especially since he purchased Twitter. It's actually hard to keep track of the number of warnings, threats of arrest and other hostile comments Musk has received in the past two years from foreign governments and prominent liberals back home. And all of that is just the tip of the iceberg. The media has create a cottage industry of Musk bashing with new articles being added to the pile almost every day. For instance:

• Elon Musk’s X feed becomes megaphone for his far-right politics - Washington Post
• One Tech Tip: Ever wanted to quit Elon Musk’s X platform? Here’s how you can do it - Associated Press
• ‘How Elon Musk Destroyed Twitter’ authors say platform is ‘a tool for controlling political discourse’ - LA Times
• Elon Musk, government efficiency expert? That is one really bad idea. - Washington Post
• I Read Everything Elon Musk Posted for a Week. Send Help. - Mother Jones
• Elon Musk criticized by civil rights groups for anti-DEI posts - NBC News
• How a single year of Elon Musk turned Twitter into a husk of its former self - CNN
• Elon Musk’s messiah complex may bring him down - The Economist
• Musk is a MAGA megaphone and a federal contractor. That’s a problem. - Washington Post
• No matter how high he gets, Elon Musk shouldn’t be above the law - Washington Post

I could go on but you get the idea. Musk has been the focus of a tidal wave of news, much of it negative. He was Time's Person of the Year in 2021 but since buying Twitter he really has become the left's public enemy #2, just behind Trump.

All you really have to do is look at the comments on this article, which are full of righteous lefties scolding Musk to get an idea what is probably driving much of the hate against him.

It is a bit ironic isn’t it? A man who trades in conspiracy theories and promotes acrimonious civil discourse on his ‘social media’ platform, is now protecting himself from the very people he has instigated.

Well, no. I don't think he's afraid of the people who largely agree with him. I think he's afraid (justifiably) of the left wing nuts who don't. He is everything they hate: Rich, productive and unafraid to speak up.

Who cares about Elon? How our society allows one man to control that amount of wealth and with that power in many areas is beyond comprehension.

Here's what the left wants:

It would be less expensive for him if he just kept his mouth shut.

Not only silenced, they want him humbled by the state.

He has morphed onto a dangerous social and military security threat.

This is the result of failed tax and regulatory policies, that one person could amass thus much power.

Again, I could go on but you get the idea. And to be clear, I'm not saying every threat aimed at him is directly connected to politics. There are plenty of apolitical nuts in the world. But it's pretty telling that the Times doesn't even mention all of the hate Musk gets from the left in and article describing why he can't go out in the street alone anymore.