It’s Elon Musk’s ‘pronatalist’ bonanza – so many families, so little time | Marina Hyde
With the mothers of his kids begging for his attention on social media, he makes much of ‘pronatalism’. Is that just a fancy word for bad parenting?
If only Elon Musk could impregnate humans at the same rate he’s giving them the ick. Alas, polls show the efficiency tsar’s US approval rating dwindling towards levels he has enjoyed for quite some time among the UK public. And as a country that lived through the Boris Johnson era, I think we have to warn the Americans that if a government figure can’t or won’t answer the basic question “how many kids do you have?”, then he’s probably going to turn out to be a disappointment. And it might even have been a warning sign. If the WhatsApp group of his exes is bigger than Mumsnet and 10 times as pissed off, then it’s just possible you could be dealing with a guy you’re going to end up feeling betrayed by.
Is Musk that guy? Who among us can say, certainly considering the sheer number and ferocity of the lawyers Mister Free Speech employs? I do know Elon is something called a “pronatalist”, but I increasingly wonder whether that’s just a fancy new word for a very old form of shittiness. Consider the spectacle of his ex, Grimes, coming on to the social media platform Musk owns and outright begging him to get in touch for his input concerning a “medical crisis” for one of their shared children. “I’m not giving any details but he won’t respond to texts call or emails and has skipped every meeting and our child will suffer lifelong impairment if he doesn’t respond asap, so I need him to fucking respond and if I have to apply public pressure then I guess that’s where we are at.” These posts were either deleted or are now inaccessible, while one user suggested she had been “shadowbanned”. Silly Grimes. If she had put a rape threat or some antisemitism in her APB, it would have stayed up.
Marina Hyde is a Guardian columnist
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