Andrew Yang Credits Elon Musk As A Major Inspiration

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Yesterday, Elon Musk made the day of another high-profile fan who has been motivated by him. Whether Elon is replying to random tweets, sharing something a fan made, or simply encouraging them as he did for me last year, Elon has always put people first, and I think that is why he is so well loved.

I support Yang

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) August 10, 2019

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In this case, as you gathered from the headline, Andrew Yang is the fan who Elon Musk supported. Yang is one of the 2020 Democratic US presidential candidates, and founder of Venture for America.

Venture for America is a nonprofit organization that has a mission to revitalize American cities and communities through entrepreneurship. One way they help is by training recent graduates and young professionals to work for startups in emerging cities throughout the US.

Yang’s signature issue in the 2020 presidential race is that he believes every American over 18 should have a universal basic income — a balanced response to the rapid rise of automation. He also believes that everyone should have access to Medicare and focuses more on human-centered capitalism.

Human-centered capitalism, or Human Capitalism, is something that is geared toward maximizing our own well-being and fulfillment. Many corporations that I have worked for do not put much value on their workers. To them, we are replaceable. This is a common fact that many workers across America know and feel, but they also feel there is nothing we can do about it, because we all have bills to pay. Many would rather be a “corporate slave” than be homeless, especially if they have families to feed and care for.

The core message of Human Capitalism is that Humans Are More Important Than Money. The unit of a Human Capitalism economy is each person, not each dollar.

Elon Musk also believes that UBI is “obviously needed.”

Obviously needed

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) August 10, 2019

In fact, Elon spoke and tweeted about this years ago. In response, our own Mike Barnard wrote a great long piece on UBI and others who recommend it.

Elon tweeted some thoughts in support of it years ago:https://t.co/VimD8FEhzh

— CleanTechnica (@cleantechnica) August 10, 2019

Universal Basic Income, or UBI, is something like “$1,000 for everyone.” That’s not meant to provide all that a person needs to survive, just to help boost their quality of life and raise it up to a livable level for many people. It can be hard to find a rental for under $2,000 in many major cities, let alone provide for food and transport. However, $1,000/month would help many struggling workers who are working 2–3 part-time jobs just to get by. Note that they often have to work part-time jobs simply because many corporations don’t want to cover the costs of hiring full-time workers — they don’t want to insure their workers or provide certain employee benefits.

In an Instagram video post, Andrew Yang previously explained to the world how Elon Musk has been an inspiration to him. Through his campaign, he relayed to more people that Elon Musk is “one of the few ppl who put his blood sweat and tears and all of his material success into companies that if they fail it’s going to be a massive loss.” In other words, Elon Musk is trying super hard to help the world, and humanity will be worse off if these companies fail.

2020 US Presidential Candidate @AndrewYang talks about his thoughts of @elonmusk #Yang2020 pic.twitter.com/5hQQJ7BBx5

— vincentyu.eth (@vincent13031925) August 11, 2019

Yang also now says that Elon inspires him to this day. He mentions a guiding principle of Elon’s as ongoing motivation — even when the chance of failure is high, if it’s something you believe in, you should still go for it. That was the approach Elon took when starting Tesla, SpaceX, and other ventures — and pouring money, sweat, and tears into them when times were rough.

“That actually is something that has motivated me to do, frankly, things that are somewhat low likelihood.”

Andrew Yang was once considered a long shot in the presidential race by almost everyone — even written off completely. However, he has gone from being an unknown to being a household name for many Americans. Many followers call themselves members of the “Yang Gang” (some are members of the CleanTechnica team). It is a big boost for many of them to now see Elon Musk showing his support.

This is the beauty of our country, the USA. Even Elon Musk once said, “America’s where great things are possible,” and his life experiences have shown that to be true. Here we have someone from South Africa who emigrated to the US with only $2000 and has become one of the most influential and helpful people in the world.

Elon has inspired millions around the globe, myself included. Andrew Yang joins that growing list as he hopes to become the Democratic candidate who will oppose Donald Trump in the 2020 presidential race. We’ll see if he can ride this endorsement to new heights.