A tweet by Tesla Inc TSLA CEO Elon Musk in 2018 in which he made a “commitment” to fix contaminated water “in any house in Flint” is spurring debate on Reddit.
What Happened: On Thursday, a pillow company executive who goes by the handle “LeGate” on Twitter said that Flint still has a water crisis, while Musk is now the richest man on the planet. The poster also shared Musk’s original tweet.
Hey Elon, it’s been 3 years… you’re now the richest man on the planet. Flint still has a water crisis. https://t.co/57CsIh2oaE
— LeGate (@williamlegate) November 18, 2021
The tweet was retweeted 1,055 times at press time and received 4,063 likes. It was noticed by users of the r/WhitePeopleTwitter Reddit discussion forum where a screenshot of it was shared, upvoted nearly 68,000 times as of the time of writing.
User “TheFeelsGoodMan” said of the Flint water situation that it was “more or less resolved.”
“I mean that the water's not coming out in chunks and you can drink it without catching a disease,” said TheFeelsGoodMan.
Another user “zapdude0” said, “Flint does not still have a water crisis. Why do people keep parroting this over and over?”
“Broken promises.. Elon running for office incoming,” wrote user “karm-a-holic.”
“Daffyduckhunt2” noted the timeline of the crisis and the fact that it was 3 years old.
“We're not here to actually help people. We're here for upvotes and virtue signaling. That's why we're upvoting 3 year old tweets about crises that have already been resolved.”
See Also: How To Buy Tesla (TSLA) Stock
Why It Matters: The Flint, Michigan water crisis dates back to April 2014 when the city changed its water source leaving residents exposed to high levels of lead.
In 2018, Musk had created an email address aimed at the residents of Flint and offered to send “someone to install a water filter,” as per an earlier report.
In 2018, Flint’s school district had thanked Musk and his nonprofit foundation for donating funds for the purchase of water filtration systems. At the time Musk had said he was willing to do more in the future on Twitter.
You’re most welcome. Hope to do more to help in the future.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 5, 2018
Flint water has been meeting federal standards for five years in a row and the water is now testing at 3 parts per billion (ppb) for lead, which is lower than the 15 ppb federal requirement, as per Michigan.gov.
Water Monitoring Results For City of Flint, Michigan — Source Michigan.Gov
The City of Flint said in an update on Thursday that four major water infrastructure projects are near completion. The projects include a new chemical feed building, a secondary water pipeline, a control station restoration project, and rehabilitation of a 20-million gallon reservoir.
Price Action: Tesla shares closed nearly 0.7% higher at $1,096.38 in the regular session on Thursday. The shares fell almost 0.8% in the after-hours trading.
Photo: Courtesy of Nvidia via Flickr
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