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Last Updated on: 21st May 2025, 01:37 pm
Whoever has “Tesla CEO Elon Musk kills the honeybees” on their 2025 bingo card can take a well deserved bow. After all, who could have foreseen that honeybees — the workhorses of the pollinator world — would join the fallout from Musk’s recent gig as head of the “DOGE” budget cutting team? Fortunately, all is not lost, at least, not yet.
Honeybees & The Tesla Brand
Earlier this week, Musk announced that he is leaving the White House behind to resume his CEO duties at Tesla. Still, that probably won’t stop sales of Telsa EVs from circling the drain following Musk’s gleefully destructive path through the federal workforce here in the US, on top of his self-outing as a right wing rabble-rouser in Europe. It’s a textbook case of brand reputation in crisis, and the honeybee angle only adds to the hurt.
As every schoolchild knows (or should know), honeybees are essential to US economy as pollinators that drive production in the domestic agriculture industry. Many children, and adults, may also be aware that this essential resource is at risk of dying off.
A crisis in bee populations called Colony Collapse Disorder was identified in the US about 20 years ago, with massive die-offs reported on a regular basis. Solutions began emerging, though. While the die-offs continue, the US Department of Agriculture, along with its sprawling network of research institutions and agriculture industry stakeholders, can take credit for identifying the causes of different die-offs, reducing the risk of the ultimate disaster, and restoring honeybee populations — that is, until Musk came on the scene.
The Atlantic exposed the goings-on to light on May 20, in a detailed article titled, “The Trump Administration Is Tempting a Honeybee Disaster,” subtitled, “Bees are dying. Federal funding cuts aren’t helping.”
It’s not just the money, it’s the people. You know, those pesky meddling government bureaucrats that Republicans are always whining about. As reported by The Atlantic, the USDA’s Agricultural Research Service, which runs the agency’s honeybee death investigation labs, lost 800 workers to the Tesla — er, make that Musk/DOGE — chainsaw earlier this year, with predictable results.
What Does Tesla CEO Elon Musk Know About Honeybees Anyways?
The Atlantic describes a situation in chaos as beekeepers struggle to find solutions to the latest die-off, which occurred over the winter, only to find nobody minding the store over at USDA while farmers clamor desperately for hives to pollinate this year’s crops. You know, those same farmers who voted for Trump…well, maybe not for Musk…oh, never mind!
It didn’t have to be that way. Let’s take a stroll back through memory lane, back around five years ago, when Colony Collapse Disorder was a known thing with known solutions.
“More than 100 U.S. grown crops rely on pollinators,” USDA noted in a blog post dated June 24, 2020, which hopefully won’t disappear along with the rest of the agency. That’s just the crop production angle. Honeybees, of course, also produce honey. At the time of the blog post, USDA estimated the total value of both honeybee products and pollinator services at about $700 million, along with another $18 billion representing the estimated value of crops pollinated by honeybees.
USDA lists fruits, nuts, vegetables, legumes, oilseeds, and forage crops among the agricultural products supported by honeybees.
It’s a safe bet Musk had no idea about all that. To be fair, though, he has always promoted himself as source of wisdom on various matters of technology, including Tesla vehicles along with Tesla-branded solar equipment and energy storage systems. He has never been known to fashion himself as a knowledgeable source of information about honeybees. Perhaps now would be a good time to learn.
Tesla Can Be Replaced, But Honeybees Cannot
Circling back around to the EV sales drop over at Tesla, aside part of the problem is that the company had the EV field practically all to itself for many years. The situation is completely different today, with legacy firms and other startups piling on to the electric passenger car market as well as all sorts of commercial vehicles up to and including Class 8 heavy duty trucks.
If Tesla dropped out of the EV industry today, plenty of other automakers will scramble to fill the gap, their marketing teams and supply chains at the ready.
If honeybees drop out of the pollination industry, who’s going to step in and take their place? The USDA, for one, is not taking any chances — oh, sheesh, at least it wasn’t taking any chances, until now.
“Pollinators also support healthy ecosystems needed for clean air, stable soils, and a diverse wildlife,” USDA noted in its 2020 blog post. “That’s why USDA’s National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA) partners with the Land-Grant University System, U.S. government laboratories, and private and non-profit organizations to support research, education, and extension programs advancing pollinator health.”
Imagine all those people — hundreds of them — working together to support one tiny little insect. Why does it take so many? Can’t one or two dozen people do the same thing?
The short answer is no, as USDA explains. Colony Collapse Disorder is a catch-all for what happens when most of the worker bees flee a hive. To find a cure you need to find the cause, and that requires a good deal of sleuthing. The USDA cites a laundry list of potential causes, including “pests, diseases, pesticides, pollutants/toxins, nutritional deficits, habitat loss, effects of climate variability, agricultural production intensification, reduced species or genetic diversity, and pollinator or crop management practices.”
Good luck figuring out where the problem lies, without a network of experts to steer you in the right direction.
Next Steps For Beekeepers & Farmers
The 2020 blog post was published during a period of celebration for USDA, following several years in which it received no CCD reports.
What a difference a few years makes. As noted by The Atlantic, the worst spate of CCD reports on record occurred from June of last year to this past February, when the US beekeeping industry lost an estimated 62% of commercial colonies.
In former years, USDA and its network of labs would be racing to identify the causes and laying plans to restore the bee population for the following year. However, after Musk and his team at “DOGE” chainsawed their way through the USDA, it’s every bee for itself — unless, of course, beekeepers and farmers can prevail upon the Trump administration to restore vital laboratory services to full staffing. Stay tuned…
Photo (cropped): Having trashed the Tesla brand with his activities as head of “DOGE,” CEO Elon Musk has added a potential honeybee crisis to his list of accomplishments (courtesy of USDA, credit: Peggy Greb).
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