Uncle Elon’s Christmas Stocking
Satire, based on: Musk pledges to give a share of his SpaceX company to ‘every kid in America’ (AP News)
Thunderation and howdy-do! Pull up a nail keg, comrades, for Santa Claus has moved to Texas and taken up rocketry.
Here are the plain, bare-footed facts as the AP reports them: Mr. Elon Musk pledged on Monday to give one share of his SpaceX company to “every kid in America” next year. He made the offer one day after the AI outfit Anthropic said it would commit 5% of its shares to a “public benefit” fund. One plute held out a dollar, so the other plute held out a dollar and a dime. That’s how the mighty do their charity in these latter days: by keeping up with the Joneses, if the Joneses each owned a moon.
Now don’t misunderstand me. I am not against a child getting a present. I got an orange and a stick of peppermint every Christmas, and I thought I was a Vanderbilt. But I notice that when a high-bellied money-baron hands out gifts, the gift has a way of doubling back home to him, like a well-trained bird dog.
Just study the thing out. Every young’un in the land becomes a stockholder. Little Johnny Lunchpail, age six, no longer cares whether the cow is milked. He cares about the quarterly earnings. Under the new order a boy will read the Wall Street Journal before he can read his primer. At eight he will attend his first shareholder meeting in short pants. At ten he will vote his one share for whatever the Board tells him. At twelve he will defend his benefactor at the supper table harder than any hired Congressman. Yea, verily, that will be the truck!
And why not? Buying the whole country is a costly undertaking, but buying its children one share at a time comes mighty cheap by comparison. It used to be that a plute had to hire a newspaper to sing his praises. Now he can raise up a whole generation of little choir boys, every one of them with a stake in the hymn.
Meanwhile, the AI barons over at Anthropic, whose own boss warns that his machines might do in the human race, are sharing their wealth with that same human race. I suppose it’s thoughtful. If the robots are coming to eat our supper, it is only neighborly of the robot-makers to leave us a tip on the plate.
Oh, for a law that would make every one of these kid-glove kangaroos spend one week following a mule through a Wilkes County tobacco patch! Then they might learn what the common people actually need. It isn’t a fractional slice of a rocket. It’s an honest wage, a doctor bill they can pay, and a schoolhouse roof that doesn’t leak.
Mark my words, dear sinner friends. When a rich man starts handing out pieces of his kingdom, count your fingers after you shake his hand.
I believe charity is a fine thing. I believe a gift with strings is a puppet show. And I believe you had better subscribe.
Harry Huckleberry, Editor
