It seems that the more people learn about Musk, the less they like him—at least, according to a new Hart Research survey published Wednesday by Groundwork Collective and Public Citizen. The poll asked respondents about how much influence they felt Musk should have in government, explaining aspects of his role in DOGE, his lack of oversight, and his far-reaching access.

By the end of the survey, 63 percent of voters reported having an unfavorable opinion of Musk, an increase of nine points from the beginning of the survey. Meanwhile, only 32 percent of respondents had a favorable opinion, which was down 7 percent from the start, and showed a major negative swing among non-MAGA Republicans.

Even with all the profound advantages the South Pole enjoys compared to Mars, even on a planet where living things have spent billions and billions of years figuring out how to adapt to and thrive within an incredibly diverse array of biomes—on a planet where giant tubeworms the size of NBA basket stanchions have colonized lightless ocean depths at which a human would be crushed like a grape under a piano—the South Pole simply cannot support complex life. It is too cold, and its relationship with sunlight too erratic, for living things to sustain themselves there. On astronomical scales it is for all practical purposes in the exact same spot as some of the most life-rich and biodiverse places in the known universe, and yet no species has established a permanent self-sustaining population there. Ever.

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Even with steady year-round subtropical sunlight, even with conditions infinitely more nurturing than those found anywhere on Mars, the summit of Mount Everest cannot support complex life. It's too cold; the air is too thin; there is no liquid water for plants and animals to drink. Standing on the top of Mount Everest, a person can literally look at places where plants and animals happily grow and live and reproduce, yet no species has established a permanent self-sustaining population on the upper slopes of Everest. Even microbes avoid it.

Life on earth writ large, the grand network of life, is a greater and more dynamic terraforming engine than any person could ever conceive. It has been operating ceaselessly for several billions of years. It has not yet terraformed the South Pole or the summit of Mount Everest. On what type of timeframe were you imagining that the shoebox of lichen you send to Mars was going to transform Frozen Airless Radioactive Desert Hell into a place where people could grow wheat?

Musk, the world's richest person, spent more than a quarter of a billion dollars helping Trump get elected president in November. Removing the crash-disclosure provision would particularly benefit Tesla, which has reported most of the crashes – more than 1,500 – to federal safety regulators under the program. Tesla has been targeted in National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) investigations, including three stemming from the data.