Weeds can be defined as a plant out of place (ex., grass in your tomato garden). Executive Order 13112 (1999) defines invasive species as “an alien species whose introduction does or is likely to cause economic or environmental harm or harm to human health.” If that doesn’t describe Elon Musk to a “T,” I don’t know what does.
He's not native to this country and is causing economic harm. Just ask the thousands of fired federal employees. They have families, mortgages, rents, student loans, medical expenses, etc.
How will they pay for those now? They aren’t weeds; they’re hardworking people, our neighbors and friends. They support the local community and economy (or used to). What’s the economic impact there?
President Musk hasn’t caused any environmental harm yet, but he will once he decides to sell off our public lands to the highest bidders. Just think of how much money that’ll return to the treasury and Musk’s and his fellow billionaires’ pockets.
If he decides to keep the public lands public, he may relax or remove the regulations managing them. What could possibly go wrong without regulations on where and how much to mine, cut timber, graze livestock, etc.? “Drill baby, drill” is their mantra after all. Who needs clean water and air regulations? It’s been 56 years since the Cuyahoga River burned. That could never happen again (yeah, sure).
If you need more evidence of who the real weed is, consider Musk Thistle (Carduus nutans), a federally listed invasive species that’s also from Africa, just like Elon. Coincidence?
Clare Hydock
Delta
