In March 2009, The New York Times wrote a lengthy piece about renowned physicist Freeman Dyson, then 85. Four years earlier, Dyson began publicly to express doubts about the global warming or “climate change” alarmism promoted by the likes of former Vice President Al Gore, whom Dyson disparaged as “an opportunist” engaging in “lousy science.”

About Dyson’s intellect and stature, the Times wrote: “Dyson is a scientist whose intelligence is revered by other scientists — William Press, former deputy director of the Los Alamos National Laboratory and now a professor of computer science at the University of Texas, calls him ‘infinitely smart.’ Dyson — a mathematics prodigy who came to this country at 23 and right away contributed seminal work to physics by unifying quantum and electrodynamic theory — not only did path-breaking science of his own; he also witnessed the development of modern physics, thinking alongside most of the luminous figures of the age, including Einstein, Richard Feynman, Niels Bohr, Enrico Fermi, Hans Bethe, Edward Teller, J. Robert Oppenheimer and Edward Witten, the ‘high priest of string theory’ …”

Described politically as an “Obama-loving, (George W.) Bush-loathing liberal,” Dyson immersed himself in the science of climate change, read the prominent and influential studies and watched Gore’s Oscar-winning documentary, “An Inconvenient Truth.”

After this deep dive, Dyson said he was coming “out of the closet as far as global warming is concerned” while acknowledging “most consider me wrong about global warming.”

About climate change alarmism, Dyson concluded: “The climate-studies people who work with models always tend to overestimate their models. They come to believe models are real and forget they are only models. … Most of the evolution of life occurred on a planet substantially warmer than it is now and substantially richer in carbon dioxide.”

One would think that Dyson’s observations would cause at lease some of the most ardent climate change alarmists to say, “Dyson is brilliant. What does he see that I don’t? If one of the world’s leading physicists, universally recognized as a genius, thinks climate change alarmism is nonsense and that nonscientist Al Gore is full of it, perhaps I need to rethink this?”

Instead, according to Dyson’s son, his father’s views have “cooled friendships.”

This brings us to Elon Musk, the world’s richest man and a brilliant technologist, whose achievements include co-founding the electronic payment firm PayPal; starting the rocket and spacecraft company SpaceX; becoming one of the first major investors in Tesla; starting an artificial intelligence company; and founding Starlink, a satellite internet service. He bought the company formally known as Twitter, reined in its discrimination against conservative users and fired nearly 80% of its workforce without any harm to continuing operations.

Musk, a longtime member of the political left, renounced the Democratic Party and became not just an admirer of Donald Trump but campaigned on behalf of his second term. Far worse, as far as his former left-wing admirers are concerned, Musk joined the Trump administration as the leader of the Department of Government Efficiency, with a mission to wring out bloat, inefficiency and corrupt spending by the federal government.

Musk recently said: “The government waste and fraud is so high that it’s causing a $2 trillion annual deficit. … The cost of our debt has gotten so high that just the interest payments on the debt exceed the entire military budget. … If a country overspends and doesn’t spend wisely, just like a person, the country will go bankrupt. … (A)nd if we don’t do something, the ship of America is going to sink. We are all on that ship.”

One would think many on the left, especially those who once admired Musk, would at the very least say, “Musk is brilliant. What does the man behind SpaceX and Tesla see about the Democratic Party, the Republican Party and President Donald Trump that I don’t? Maybe I need to rethink this?”

Instead, Tesla owners have seen their cars defaced and set on fire. Musk is regularly denounced by Democratic officeholders as “dumb,” “evil” and “a Nazi.”

Question: As to the now late Dyson and the still-alive Elon Musk, a recipient of death threats, what’s wrong with this picture?

COPYRIGHT 2025 LAURENCE A. ELDER