Good thing you trust the competent scientists he's hired, because they're the ones blowing the whistle on Musk's operating practices. The lede: "Elon Musk’s Neuralink, a medical device company, is under federal investigation for potential animal-welfare violations amid INTERNAL STAFF complaints that its animal testing is being rushed, causing needless suffering and deaths." (emphasis mine)
Whether or not those quoted are actually representative or cherry picked, and whether they’re as opposed to internal practices as is suggested or simply think there’s room for improvement requires a trusted investigator to determine.
Quite frankly, the vast majority of the journalistic enterprise has been so heavily discredited and so abused for hit pieces and marketing that I don’t trust that the reporting reflects the internal reality they’re depicting.
The timing, the citation of multiple federal boards, citation of a competitor, and the group think Eye of Sauron that used to be aligned against Trump seemingly gearing up to go against Musk makes me highly skeptical of the legitimacy of the complaints.
This is a tragic situation, because it is now very difficult to distinguish between the types of people opposed to high pressure pursuits of excellence in general, regardless of how effective and voluntarily pursued and in good faith they are, and people who are legitimately waving a red flag about a serious problem.
This does not strike me as a serious problem, this strikes me as a hit piece.
I'm aware that we don't have all the evidence yet - this is why there's a federal probe. So far, the quotes we see from employees (those competent scientists that you said you trust) suggest extreme malfeasance.
Regardless of your opinion of the current state of journalism or the "Eye of Sauron" or Trump or whatever else you're trying to drag into this conversation, Elon Musk's company is being investigated by the federal government after his employees have alleged widespread ethical abuses in his company.
As a counterpoint to your lament of geniuses being persecuted, I don't think Musk is particularly "excellent" in any way except being rich, which affords him opportunities and platforms far beyond the reach of the average person, including being able to hire the smartest people in the world who do the actual work in his companies.
Maybe you don't think it's a serious problem, but enough employees do and so does the federal government. It's not "tragic" in any way that Musk's companies are regulated the same way other companies in those domains are regulated. I find that Elon Musk doing something unethical/illegal is far more plausible than what you suggest - a conspiracy by journalists and the employees of Neuralink (again, the competent scientists which you claim to trust) to defame him.
