HomeWorld NewsElon Musk and the Coronavirus, amidst donations and irony

Elon Musk and the Coronavirus, amidst donations and irony

Elon Musk must have a conflicting relationship with the Coronavirus. The CEO of Tesla posted on his Twitter profile an ironic graph, which even if it never mentions the pandemic, it is directly related to it.

The tweet shows an exponential curve of a graph that reads:

“Time spent looking at exponential graphs”.

Exponential growth is spoken of especially in relation to the Coronavirus to indicate the rate of growth of contagions that is likely to increase to infinity. Fortunately, at least in Italy, this hypothesis has recently been averted. 

Elon Musk panicking about the Coronavirus

The tweet was probably Elon Musk’s way of pointing out how the number of people worried about contagion had grown.

Musk himself was actually quite sceptical about the emergency when it took hold in Italy and Europe, after having already hit China hard. 

On March 6th, Musk tweeted a few words: 

“The coronavirus panic is dumb”.

The Italian virologist Roberto Burioni replied claiming that:

“The fool’s epidemic is already a pandemic”.

A few days earlier he had written to his employees telling them not to be alarmed, because, in his opinion, it is easier to die of a car accident than of Covid-19.

Then the contagion grew, several countries in the world had to resort to lockdown, cities emptied, even New York became deserted. While all this was happening, hospitals were filling up, photos of coffins piled up and exhausted doctors were travelling around the world. And even the Tesla factory in California had to shut down production

This changed the minds of supporters of the theory that the Coronavirus “is just a flu”, including probably Elon Musk himself.

The CEO of Tesla has partnered with Medtronic to provide hospitals with what they need to save lives.

More recently, Elon Musk donated 1,200 respirators to a hospital in California, purchased directly from China. 

A few days later, New York Mayor Bill de Blasio announced that Elon Musk was donating hundreds of ventilators to the city and state of New York.

New York is one of the cities most affected by the pandemic. 

Despite changing his mind and being generous, with his most recent tweet Elon Musk has shown that he has not lost his sense of irony. Even though when it comes to the Coronavirus, it’s no laughing matter.

Eleonora Spagnolo
Eleonora Spagnolo
Journalist passionate about the web and the digital world. She graduated with honours in Multimedia Publishing at the University La Sapienza in Rome and completed a master's degree in Web and Social Media Marketing.
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