aren't effective versus one of their own who has turned on them.
You're under one wrong assumption here: that he was ever "one of them".
Something is quite apparent when you look at the current US monied interests, they come in two forms, Old Money and the Tech Upstarts. The Tech Upstarts in many respects were outsiders to the old money, and if you pay attention much of what was done socially over the years was done to pull the Tech Upstarts into the control of the Old Money. This was done various ways. I suspect a large part of what Epstein did was capture new money so it could be controlled by the Old Money, using their hedonism against them (this was a large part of why Epstein used underage girls... if you pay attention most were not actually children, just teens. It's not that everyone involved with him were pedos, its that it was an ENTRAPMENT scheme. A 15 to 16 year old girl with the right makeup and acting can easily pass for 18... and one thing leads to another. Classic honey trap setup and bam, another powerful rich person under control.)
Problem is, it seems that Musk managed to avoid any entrapment schemes and has refused to join the Old Money Elites. I think in large part this is because unlike many of the American Tech Upstarts, he is a naturalized citizen rather than a born citizen. This is critical because it means he wasn't indoctrinated in American schools and colleges and seems to actually believe in the ideals of America, which most of them long ago rejected.
What this means is that he approaches the same problems they do but differently. He might well believe in Climate Change, but to him the solution isn't to reduce standards of living for people, it's to find ways to maintain, if not raise standards, while addressing it. This is in large part what Tesla is about. This actually is reflected in how Tesla is styled and marketed. Look at a Tesla and compare it to other "Green" cars and note how different they look. Their lines aren't "green car" lines, the lines of most Teslas fall into the Sports Sedan area. Heck, the high end Teslas are marketed and compete with Sports Sedans, not with other electric vehicles.
This seems like a silly aside, right? Yes, Teslas look like sports sedans, but stop and really think about that. What are
Sports Sedans? They are one of the ultimate expressions of upper middle class lifestyle. They are a compromise car meant to be functional for families and daily driving, while still being fun and aggressive to drive. Sports sedan's are primarily meant for MEN and not just any men, but men who need to make a compromise between functionality and fun... AKA... "fathers".
And for the record, the mid-sized sports sedan has a long history in the US as being built on variants of what most would call family cars. In the 1990s you had the
Ford Taurus SHO. Ford also had the
Ford Fusion Sport. There's many others and most companies up to the 2010s had at least one variant on the market... and then... you saw many of them get discontinued. Why? Because the change in fuel standards under the Obama administration basically killed them off under their past design standards (you see, most of the time what they did was just put a REALLY BIG ENGINE in a full or mid-sized sedan... which means these vehicles got lower fuel efficiency compared to other vehicles in their weight class. The fuel efficiency standards, since they're set at fleet level, meant that car manufacturers had to pick and choose which lower milage cars they would keep on offer and so, for instance, Ford stuck with their iconic Mustang over the Fusion Sport, now repeat that across the entire industry and you saw a widespread death of the Sport Sedan... even now cars marketed as Sports Sedans frequently have decidedly smaller engines and less horsepower than similar cars 10 to 15 years ago...).
What does the Tesla do in this equation? It's seeking to be a similar car to the traditional sport sedan while accommodating the changing needs. Rather than force people into these ugly and unfun green cars... Musk's electric car was explicitly being something functional and fun.
All this aside, Musk basically refused to join them, and now he's trying to fight back because, well, I think it's personal. You see, he liked the Babylon Bee... he liked Twitter. He liked the Babylon Bee ON Twitter. They removed them over a position that ten years ago would have been completely unnoteworthy, and one that is hotly contested by much of society today despite the elite's attempts to suppress debate and discussion on it. Plus they've clearly made a lot of wrong moves in handling Musk, they're gambling they can actually destroy Twitter, likely banking on TikTok carrying on the torch of elitist propaganda.