Multibillionaire Tesla founder Elon Musk used to be a liberal icon but now he is a right-wing villain as the new free speech owner of Twitter.

During Musk’s leftist hero days he became a personal friend of Democratic U.S. Sen. John Hickenlooper who was so close to the Musk family that while he was governor he presided over the wedding of Elon Musk’s brother. In fact, Hickenlooper was flown to the wedding on the Musk brother’s private jet.

This little sojourn ended up being a big headache for Hickenlooper when it became one of several ethical charges filed against him during his 2020 Senate campaign.

Hickenlooper must have been wowed by all the attention paid to him by the multibillionaire at that fateful wedding. Just a few weeks later he signed an executive order directly benefiting Musk’s electric vehicle company Tesla.

Musk has now become a hero to conservatives across the nation since his purchase of Twitter. Musk has exposed the direct intervention in the 2020 presidential campaign by Twitter executives who censored references to President Joe Biden’s corrupt son, Hunter Biden. In fact, Musk is ending the censorship imposed on many other Twitter users.

Do Colorado Democratic leaders have any concerns about Hickenlooper’s long personal relationship with Musk now that he owns Twitter? They seem to be amazingly tolerant of not only Hickenlooper’s ethical lapses but how he forced his way into the 2020 Senate race after he demeaned being a senator as a horrible job.

In fact, there doesn’t seem to be any public record of any comment by Hickenlooper raising concerns about Musk’s new policies as the owner of Twitter while many national Democratic leaders have been openly critical.

In a twist on Tammy Wynette’s famous song, “Stand by Your Man,” Hickenlooper appears to be standing by his multibillionaire friend who now owns Twitter.

Remember that Colorado Democrats had several candidates competing for the 2020 nomination for the U.S. Senate while Hickenlooper attempted to run for president in 2019, not that anyone in Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina or Nevada really noticed or cared.

After returning to Colorado from his aborted presidential campaign, Hickenlooper denied any interest in running for the Senate against incumbent Republican U.S. Sen. Cory Gardner. He denigrated serving in the Senate and presciently declared he would be an awful senator.

Several respected Democratic candidates had been campaigning for months such as former House Speaker Alice Madden, Denver state Sen. Angela Williams, former U.S. Attorney John Walsh, former Ambassador Dan Baer, former state Sen. Mike Johnston, former state House Speaker Andrew Romanoff, Professor Stephanie Rose Spaulding, climate activist Dianna Bray, immigration activist Michelle Ferrigno Warren and biomedical scientist Trish Zornio.

But Senate Democratic leader Charles Schumer of New York and the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee out of Washington, D.C. decided none of these candidates were worthy of the Democratic nomination so they big-footed Hickenlooper into the race. Some of the candidates compliantly withdrew their candidacies in the face of pressure from New York and Washington, D.C.  

Romanoff and others defiantly stayed in the race but they were swamped by out-of-state money raised by Schumer and the DSCC. Hickenlooper tried to avoid debates with his primary opponents saying “I need my sleep.”

Meanwhile, Hickenlooper refused to appear before the Colorado Ethics Commission to answer charges of violations of Colorado ethics laws and even blew off a subpoena requiring him to show up. Only after being the first public official in history to be held in contempt by the commission did he finally appear.

During this saga, Hickenlooper told members of the media it was their job to protect him. 

He was found guilty of violating Colorado’s ethics laws. Despite being a very wealthy man, he let the taxpayers pay the $150,000 legal bill for his defense.

Nevertheless, Hickenlooper ended up elected to the Senate due to a terribly strong tailwind of anti-Trump sentiment in Colorado in 2020.

Will Colorado Democrats demand Hickenlooper comment on his BFF Elon Musk’s policies at Twitter or are they going to compliantly stand by and let him weasel out of this question as well?

Dick Wadhams is a Republican political consultant and a former Colorado Republican state chairman.