Ron DeSantis and Elon Musk are smart guys, but each of them has made a puzzling decision in recent days.
DeSantis, the governor of Florida, said last week that he wants permission from the state Supreme Court to convene a grand jury. Its assignment would be to investigate “any and all wrongdoing” involving covid-19 vaccines.
The grand jury request contends that pharmaceutical companies had a financial interest in creating a climate where people believed that getting a covid-19 vaccine would make sure they could not spread the virus to others.
DeSantis also said some people have lost confidence in public health institutions, including the Centers for Disease Control. He has been a prominent critic of CDC recommendations for things like vaccines and masks.
If that’s what the governor thinks, so be it. But it’s impossible to look at this without recognizing that DeSantis is a rising star in the Republican Party. He may well be a future president, which naturally leads to the question of whether he’s taking on vaccines out of sincere concern — or just to get headlines.
Rest assured that other potential presidential candidates have taken notice, because it’s easy to find quotes from DeSantis in which he has stood up for vaccines.
In 2020, he repeatedly praised President Donald Trump’s administration for leading the way in quick vaccine development. In 2021 he praised the Biden administration for expanding access to the shots. He’s clearly on the record as a vaccine advocate, so why reverse course and imply that drug companies and public health experts have been deliberately deceitful? Is it to set him apart from Trump? Time will tell.
And now to Musk, the electric vehicle and space transportation visionary who more recently has been in the news because he bought Twitter, the social media company that is taking up a lot of his time and attention.
In less than two months as the owner of Twitter, Musk has run the company in such a way that, if you were unaware of his track record of success, you would wonder how this guy accomplished anything.
He has treated Twitter like a toy. He laid off a bunch of employees, then asked some to return. He issued policies seemingly on a whim, and quickly reversed them. He booted people off the platform because he didn’t like their use of free speech — even though free speech is why he bought Twitter in the first place.
His latest stunt, and that’s almost certainly what it is, was to take a poll of Twitter users on Sunday. He wanted to know whether they thought he should step down as the head of the company, and Musk promised he would abide by the results.
Musk’s poll lasted all of 12 hours, during which more than 17 million people responded. The results: 57.5% wanted him to leave.
Who knows what Musk will do? But the episode does reinforce the notion that his attention is far better applied at Tesla and SpaceX.
Jack Ryan, Enterprise-Journal
