Elon Musk's fans are starting to abandon him over his anti-lockdown rants

It's well known that Tesla and SpaceX founder Elon Musk has quite a cult following. But as the coronavirus pandemic continues to make headlines and lockdown orders spring up around the country, Musk has drawn a lot of criticism for his rants against measures designed to slow the virus' spread.

Writing in The Atlantic this Wednesday, Marina Koren contends that Musk's rants are causing his cult following to crack.

"Musk has downplayed the dangers of the virus, offered unfounded predictions about how many Americans it will infect, and falsely claimed that children are 'essentially immune' to COVID-19," Koren writes. "He has called, over and over again, for rolling back the widespread measures put in place to slow the spread of the virus, a move that public-health officials believe could be lethal. Musk defied local stay-at-home orders and reopened his Tesla assembly plant in California, bringing thousands of employees into work. 'I will be on the line with everyone else,' he tweeted last week, as operations restarted. 'If anyone is arrested, I ask that it only be me.'"

Now, for the first time, it looks like Musk is starting to alienate some who formerly idolized him.

"I reached out to some of these fans," Koren writes. "They were mostly men, ranging from 20-somethings to 70-somethings. They included those who drive Teslas and those who wish they did, those who describe Musk as their idol and those who just think he makes a great car. They all prefaced their remarks with praise of Musk’s brilliance, vision, and ability to do things that others had sworn were impossible. And besides, they said, nobody’s perfect. But. What the hell is he doing?"

Read the full piece over at The Atlantic.