The environmental group “The Sierra Club”, which was the most prominent name to defend Elon Musk on Twitter after it was reported that he was a top donor to a GOP PAC, tweeted in his defense because they were personally asked by Elon Musk himself, Bloomberg reports. To do that, Musk reportedly told the Sierra Club to make public $6 million in donations that he had previously donated anonymously, as an attempt to deflect public anger from his support for the GOP.
Musk’s request for a “favor” also apparently set off civil unrest between the head of The Sierra Club and its staff, some of whom did not want the Sierra Club to defend Musk publicly because of his GOP donation and stance on unions.
For those who missed the weekend story (or were preoccupied with Elon Musk calling an international hero a pedophile over the weekend) on Saturday it was revealed that the Tesla CEO was a top donor to a GOP PAC whose mission is to keep Republicans in Congress. In the brief window of time after that was reported and before Musk took to Twitter to insult a man who was key in rescuing 12 children in Thailand, Musk was the target of outrage by liberals for donating to the GOP cause.
As we reported over the weekend, ProPublica published filings which revealed that Elon Musk is a top donor to a Republican PAC named Protect the House, aimed at keeping control of Congress. The PAC raised over $8 million in in the second quarter for Republican lawmakers hoping to fend off Democratic challengers.
The top donors of the PAC include casino magnate Sheldon Adelson and Houston Texans owner Robert McNair. Although Adelson and McNair’s contributions far outweighed Musk’s — Adelson and McNair each gave $371,500 respectively, while Musk gave $33,900 — Musk was one of the top 50 donors of the PAC, just below Ken Griffin and Hank Paulson and above the Bass family and Stephen Schwarzman.
Perhaps the only saving grace on Saturday night – when countless liberals unleashed on Musk, vowing they would never buy a Tesla or would return the car they had purchased – was when the Sierra Club jumped to his defense on Twitter, urging to people that “There have got to be better topics of debate than whether [Musk] is committed to climate action.” The tweet continued, “He has dedicated his career to the mission of replacing fossil fuels with clean energy & has strongly backed the Sierra Club’s advocacy work. We are proud to have his support.”
Musk quickly retweeted their defense with his own comments and pinned the Tweet to be at the top of his Twitter timeline.
At the time of the tweet, some joked cynically that Musk was getting a perfunctory defense from The Sierra Club because he was likely a large donor. Few however, guessed that Elon Musk personally called the Sierra Club’s executive director on Saturday, and asked him to tweet out something in his defense. And, in what was the biggest surprise of Musk’s shallow response, the billionaire asked that the Sierra Club make the amount of his donations – which were previously anonymous, public. From Bloomberg:
Elon Musk personally dialed up the head of the environmental group the Sierra Club and asked for help with deflecting criticism over donations that the chairman of Tesla Inc. made to Republicans, according to an email that the head of the nonprofit sent to his staff.
Musk on Saturday called Michael Brune, the Sierra Club’s executive director, and asked that he make public more than $6 million in contributions to the group that had been anonymous, Brune wrote in the email. Musk also enlisted Brune to vouch for him on Twitter to quell a firestorm over the billionaire’s $38,900 contribution to a committee that benefits congressional Republicans including House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy.
It gets better, because according to Bloomberg sources, staff at The Sierra Club was upset over the fact that they had publicly defended Musk on Twitter, not only because he was a GOP donor but also because of his stance on unions, leading to internal blowback at the environmental organization. In response, The Sierra Club’s executive director sent an email to his staff, admitting that “Musk has made unhelpful anti-union statements and Tesla’s labor practices are also cause for concern…“
Brune is now dealing with blow-back within his own organization for complying with Musk’s requests. Two posts from his personal account and one sent from the Sierra Club’s Twitter handle that were laudatory of Tesla’s chief executive officer and his commitment to fighting climate change rankled some Sierra Club staff. They objected to Brune’s defense of an executive who funds Republicans and has bashed the United Auto Workers.
“I appreciate the concerns that I’ve seen online and in email that the tweets may be at odds with our support for workers’ rights and defeating the GOP agenda across the country,” Brune wrote in the email to his staff on Tuesday. “I don’t agree, but I see the risk and understand the concerns. Musk has made unhelpful anti-union statements and Tesla’s labor practices are also cause for concern, so I take your comments seriously.”
Still, in his email to Sierra Club staff, Brune said that it was Musk’s right to request that his previously anonymous donations be made public, and said the group would have granted that request to any donor.
Musk “asked for some help via Twitter, not about the PAC donation but to buttress the criticism that his commitment to ending fossil fuels was fake,” Brune wrote in the email. “I agreed.”
It remains unclear what the fallout within the Sierra Club will be for this solicited rescue effort.
And then, in the final twist of the story, the controversy over Musk’s political spending which rocked twitter on Saturday night, was then quickly overshadowed on Sunday by Musk tweets attacking a British cave explorer who criticized efforts by Musk to craft a mini submarine to aid the rescue of 12 boys and their youth soccer team coach in Thailand. In posts that he later deleted, Musk referred to the man as a pedophile. He has since apologized.
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