Dolly Parton and Elon Musk have rarely been mentioned together in the same sentence, but this week they have been united in social media comments wondering how the country music queen would have allocated the $44 billion the Tesla Inc (NASDAQ:TSLA) “technoking” spent acquiring Twitter Inc (NYSE:TWTR).
What Happened: Parton is one of the entertainment industry’s most generous philanthropists, and also one of its most humble. She referred to her initially unpublicized $1 million donation to the Vanderbilt University Medical Center as only being a “small part” of the development of Moderna Inc.'s (NASDAQ:MRNA) COVID-19 vaccine — her gift became known only when the New England Journal of Medicine cited her as being one of the vaccine’s sponsors.
Parton has also been a longtime benefactor of literacy programs through her Dollywood Foundation, most notably with the Imagination Library launched in 1995 as a resource for free books. She has also funded scholarships, donated money to medical centers, provided funds for Tennessee families that lost their homes in a 1996 wildfire and maintains a sanctuary for bald eagles that have been injured and cannot be returned to the wild.
Musk is also generous, albeit with a more limited focus. He committed $100 million to the nonprofit XPRIZE for an award competition on the best carbon removal solutions — last week 15 entities were each awarded $15 million as the winners in that competition — and he has made donations to Texas-area charities. A Philanthropy Roundtable report found Musk claiming to have donated $5.7 billion to charity as part of his 2021 taxes, although he refused to say where it went.
What Happened Next: In the wake of the backlash over Musk’s purchase of Twitter, some social media denizens began to champion Parton as the epitome of generosity and Musk as her polar opposite.
Political activist Rafael Shimunov posted multiple tweets advocating Parton at Musk’s expense. In one tweet, he argued, “Across her entire career, Dolly Parton jammed the culture to celebrate the working class. Elon Musk is a union buster and denies Americans workplace democracy claiming they’d be detrimental to Tesla, yet invests in Tesla in Germany where unions are the law.”
Gabino Iglesias, book review editor at PANK Magazine, tweeted, “I don’t know, imagine Dolly Parton knocking out Elon Musk or whatever makes you happy and helps you get through the day.”
Actor and writer David Dean Bottrell tweeted, "@DollyParton is a real citizen of this planet. @elonmusk doesn't give a damn about anyone but @elonmusk."
Conservative Substack-based writer Jim Treacher felt sympathy for Parton being dropped into a debate that is not of her making, tweeting, “Dolly Parton is trending because people are mad at Elon Musk lol.”
But not everyone is ready to bash Twitter’s new owner. The Twitter user Inappropriate Mom opined, “So evidently today I’m supposed to choose between @elonmusk and *checks notes* … @DollyParton?? Sorry, I won’t. I love em both.”
And Steven David, photographer and owner of Houston-based Pixel Brand Management, urged the Twitterverse to focus its energies elsewhere, stating, “I don't care what Elon Musk, Dolly Parton, or anyone else does with their money, because you know, it's THEIR money. It's not my place to judge them. Some of you need to stop judging others and take a good look in the mirror and judge the person you are.”
Dolly Parton photo by Timothy Wildey / Flickr Creative Commons; Elon Musk photo Steve Jurvetson / Flickr Creative Commons
