St. Peter don't you call me, 'cause I can't go

One of the most odious characters (non-political variety) on the American stage at present has got to be Elon Musk. Egomaniac. Narcissist. Creep. Conspiracy theorist. Manipulator. Weirdo. Putz. 

He may be the Richest Man in the World (for the moment, anyway). 

But, yuck.

He's doing his best to wreck Twitter - and the country, while he's at it. The reliability of Tesla cars is suspect. 

Okay, between it's spaceships and its satellite business, SpaceX is quite an operation. But does the world really need a company that indulges the urge of rich dweebs who want to play astronaut? On the other hand, if Elon Musk wants to be the first pioneer to plant his freak flag on Mars, well, be my guest. 

Anyway, Musk is clearly wealthy enough to turn pretty much any dream into a reality. And his latest dream is apparently creating a company town.

Ah, the company town. Utopian. Paternalistic. Exploitive. 

Company towns "offered" employees a place to live in. You lived in a company-owned house, shopped for whatever the company wanted to stock at company-owned stores, worshipped at company-set up churches, played in company-owned parks, and sent your kids to company-run schools.

What could possibly go wrong?

When I think "company town," I go right to the coal towns of yore - and of Tennessee Ernie Ford's 1950's hit, "Sixteen Tons."

You load 16 tons, what do you get?
Another day older and deeper in debt
St. Peter, don't you call me 'cause I can't go
I owe my soul to the company store

Of course, I'm sure that Elon Musk has something cooler and more elegant in mind that a rundown mining town where workers die young of black lung disease. That is, if they aren't killed in some sort of gruesome cave in. 

For one thing, his town won't have the Kentucky holler company store:

The workers also didn’t receive adequate compensation and were paid in scrip rather than regular money. Scrip was a currency that workers could only use at the company store which often drastically increased its prices by about 20% more than other establishments outside the compound. (Source: Gizmodo)

No, Musk's Snailbrook, Texas, will be a swell place to live. 

According to the Journal, Musk’s plans include building a place for his employees to live and charging them roughly $800 per month for one and two-bedroom homes, with the caveat that they would have 30 days to vacate the premises if they were laid off or quit. Although the plans are still in the works, it seems like a good time to ask: Is this even a good idea? 

Yes, indeed, this is a good time to ask whether this is a good idea. And for me, the answer is a big, loud NO. (Two little characters, with a lot of room left in a Tweet to expand on things.)

For months, we've seen how Musk runs things at Twitter. Firing people cruelly and often arbitrarily. So, bad enough you lose your job when Musk thinks you looked cross-eyed at him, so you have to go. You not only lose your job, you've got a month - a month during which you're likely unemployed, and thus not such a desirable renter prospect - to get out of town. 

And just think of Elon Musk's being in charge of the school curriculum. (History: In 2020, Donald Trump was elected president of the United States, but rabid leftists engaged in rampant voter fraud, denying Trump his win and America the privilege of having DJT in charge for another four years.)

Would he dictate what plays and concerts could be held in the Snailbrook theater? Would he want to control what books were on the library shelves. Or would there even be books. How old school. Would he dictate what goods are on the supermarket shelves, perhaps only stocking those that turned the greatest profit? 

Maybe all he wants to do is subsidize rent. But when it's an autocratic, despotic ahole doing the subsidizing, you'd have to be worried about getting evicted if he turned on you.

Admittedly, there's precious little that Elon Musk could do that would turn my opinion of him from negative to positive. Even positive-light.

Maybe if he gave away 99.9999% of his fortune to provide universal healthcare, or affordable housing, or work on environmental issues, or gun violence.

Setting up a company town ain't one of them, whether it's in Texas or on Mars.

Ain't no one should have to sell their soul to the Musk company store.