Elon Musk: Elitist Enigma

By David Starr

 

Elon Musk once declared that “Free Speech is the bedrock of democracy. That’s why it’s the FIRST Amendment. Without free speech, all is lost.” Musk posted this on X, formerly known as Twitter, of which he owns, along with other tech companies. But Musk has been known to say one thing and then say or do the opposite.

 

From Pretoria, South Africa, Musk made an accusation in July 2023 that black South Africans were attempting to commit genocide against whites, years after white-dominated apartheid was ended and the African National Congress, under Nelson Mandela, began to govern the country. Musk tweeted the following: “They [blacks] are openly pushing for genocide of white people in South Africa.”

 

Quoting Ishaan Tharoor of Today’s WorldView newsletter (published in the Washington Post), “the Economic Freedom Fighters [EFF], a far-left South African political party,” and its leader, “the incendiary Julius Malema” held a rally where Malema “belted out an apartheid-era song,” and “the words were startling: ‘Shoot to kill,’ he intoned. ‘Kill the Boer,’ – a term for white Afrikaners –‘kill the farmer.’” This song may seem to prove Musk’s claim is right, but only on the surface. Tharoor writes that the song “…taps into Black grievance over a long history of land theft, discrimination and repression under White minority rule…” So, the song was created and sung during the era of apartheid.

 

The song of course stirred a controversy with Malema and the EFF singing it long after apartheid ended. This “triggered various legal cases as a result.” Malema insisted that the lyrics were not to be taken seriously; that they were a symbol opposing apartheid.

 

Musk’s “concern” for free speech was odd considering that “he has made a habit of sidling up in conversation with a cast of far-right influencers, including white nationalists and disseminators of conspiracy theories. Changes to the [Twitter] platform reinstated the accounts of known racist extremists, amplified propaganda from authoritarian governments and led to a documented surge in misinformation.”

 

Tharoor quotes Charlie Warzel of The Atlantic: “As a public figure, [Musk] has demonstrated an unwavering commitment to the right’s culture war against progressivism – which he refers to as ‘the woke mind virus’ – and his $44 billion Twitter purchase can easily be seen as an explicitly political act to advance this particular ideology.”

 

Regarding his father, Tharoor writes he “stressed that Musk’s experience living in a white supremacist regime has made him sensitive to discrimination…other peers from his childhood pointed to the general ignorance and obliviousness that suffered their segregated, privileged lives.”

 

Musk’s claim of white genocide is false, and the right-wing in South Africa have peddled this accusation for decades. The reality has been the reverse, where black South Africans had experienced assault and death under the white minority government; although there may have been incidents of black on white violence.

 

According to Eve Fairbanks, writing an article in The Dial, “This isn’t the only time Musk has propagated a contrived image of South Africa.” Fairbanks notes that “South Africa is a deeply misunderstood country, and Musk’s statements thicken the clouds of misconceptions that swirl around it.”

 

Fairbanks continues: “South Africans so rarely take up Musk’s invitations to talk about the purported ‘white genocide’ because [it seems] like bullshit. 

 

“There’s always been something placeless about Musk: his inscrutable accent – it’s neither North American nor South African nor even somewhere in the middle – and his restless persona.” 

 

Walter Isaacson, editor of Time, wrote a book about Musk, simply titled, Elon Musk. “It begins with a vivid depiction of South Africa,” Fairbanks writes. “Unfortunately, the portrait that Musk offered Isaacson is hard to believe, and nobody ought to buy it.”

 

Isaacson wrote the book with the idea of “humanizing Musk.” Fairbanks quotes the first line of the book: “As a kid growing up in South Africa, Elon Musk knew pain and learned how to survive it.” There is, thus, the scenario of Musk going through hardship but coming out of it heroic-like. Fairbanks writes that, “To understand South Africa, the book suggests, is to understand the cryptic billionaire.” Fairbanks talked with white South Africans and showed them portions of the book. “…they found them so implausible as to be laughable.”

 

And for years, Musk has been criticized for making a myth of his past. Rather than being a self-made man, Musk has been a “crony capitalist,” where the U.S. government has given him billions of dollars for his businesses. This is not an aberration. Musk and other billionaires have fed at the government trough, getting money they really don’t need, if they are supposed to be self-made men.

 

Musk’s recounting of his life in the book by Isaacson is, according to the South Africans Fairbanks spoke to, a grand exaggeration, “warped beyond the point of recognition.” The general impression given in Isaacson’s book is that there was no prejudice in South Africa. Blacks are not mentioned. The word “apartheid” is mentioned but is toned down without saying that it was the product of a “Christian white-supremacist regime.” Many South Africans would not recognize their country as is portrayed in Isaacson’s book. They would recognize Musk “as a very particular kind of Generation X white South African male.”

 

Musk sees himself as a protagonist and he expects the world to see him as such. But he exaggerates, he promotes various conspiracy theories “like an anti-Semitic post on X while rarely confirming that he really believes them, the way he playfully tiptoes over the edge of bigotry and then hotly denies he is intolerant – these specific assumptions and behaviors are so familiar to his white South African peers.”

 

In an interview with Don Lemon, Musk was cornered by Lemon’s questions. This can be seen on The Rational National show. Lemon formerly worked for X but was fired by Musk after this interview, this according to Emma Roth in The Verge publication.

 

Something else on Musk’s mind is the potential “threat” of changing demographics. Very opinionated on the mattered, Musk has said everything but endorse the “Great Replacement” conspiracy theory. This is a scenario where massive amounts of undocumented migrants, of color, “invade” the USA and “wreak havoc” on the white population, one way by outnumbering whites. Musk claims that those “invaders” could be future democratic voters. 

 

Writing in Rolling Stone, Miles Klee states, “While it’s true that migration into the U.S. has reached record numbers of late, creating large encampments and straining support services of sanctuary cities, Musk’s choice to focus on this disingenuous framing – migration somehow overtaking birth rates – puts him in alignment with the racist ‘Great Replacement’ conspiracy theory.” Given his opinions, Musk would just as soon come out and say he supports this theory.

 

Klee continues: “All told, then, the Tesla CEO and X owner has long been receptive to racist, far-right talking points alleging some erosion of Western white identity”. Because immigrants, again, of color, are and would be present in Western countries, there will be a major conspiracy where whites will fall victim to genocide. 

 

Musk essentially blames the democrats, especially the Biden administration, for having porous borders, letting in, as Trump said, “rapists and criminals.” But most of the immigrants coming are people who want to escape poverty and violence in their own countries, mostly from Central and South America. If their countries had stability and reasonable living standards, most probably would not migrate. The poverty and violence can be blamed on gross inequality that is characteristic of the current world order: too few wealthy nations and too many poor nations.

 

If immigrants were to be granted citizenship, which is very difficult to attain because of a backlog of cases, they would probably vote democratic. So, Musk may be right, but for the wrong reasons. Having new U.S. citizens vote that way is actually good if only because there would be a better chance to keep the republicans out of power. (But corporate democrats are also a problem, sharing the same ideological goal as the republicans: the maintaining and expansion of the rule of capital, and usually at the expense of labor.)

 

Musk went further and said that Biden has been “facilitating illegal immigration” and that non-governmental organization (NGOs) are a part of the “conspiracy.” Therefore, Musk predicted that members of the NGOs would “go to prison.” 

 

Texas governor Gregg Abbot apparently is in the same gutter level as Musk, when he said on X, “Biden would rather sue Texas for our efforts to secure the border than enforce federal laws that would eliminate this crisis. Texas will not back down. We will continue to build new barriers, repel illegal crossings, and transport migrants to relieve overwhelmed communities.” If Abbott and Musk showed wisdom, they would attack the root causes of undocumented immigration by changing the system where wealth is more democratically redistributed and the USA does not interfere in the affairs of nations in the Global South.

 

In another post on X, Musk said, “While it is trivial to enter the United States illegally, it is insanely difficult for legal immigrants to move to the United States. This is madness! We should shut down illegal immigration and greatly increase legal immigration.”

 

So, is Musk implying that nonwhite immigrants who are undocumented are uneducated and unskilled? If so, then Musk is showing that he is a racist since he only wants the skilled and educated in the USA, which implies that he wants white immigration. Besides, there are undocumented immigrants who do have skills and are educated. And don’t forget the following, to paraphrase: “Give us your tired huddled masses yearning to be free.” But what is all the more outrageous and hypocritical is the fact that immigrants from socialist countries get the royal carpet treatment in the USA.

 

There is also the possibility, or probability, that Musk is anti-Semitic, although he doesn’t say so. He hasn’t used the Nazi slogan, “Jews will not replace us,” but his opinions apparently coincide with the far-right’s position. Klee writes: “Musk’s views on immigration clearly echo the illogic that gives rise to such hateful ideology and its violent consequences.” Klee added that Musk is “blowing these kinds of dog whistles,” if not directly speaking out about the “Great Replacement” and “white genocide” conspiracies.

 

In early March, Musk had a meeting with Trump in Palm Beach, Florida. Both have had an odd relationship, with Musk rejecting Trump’s advisory councils in 2017 because of the U.S. withdrawal from the Paris climate accord. In 2022, Trump called Musk a “bullshit artist” because of Trump claiming that Musk voted for him with Musk denying that he had. 

 

Writing for CNBC, Lora Kolodny quoted Musk saying, “I don’t hate the man, but it’s time for Trump to hang up his hat and sail into the sunset,” adding, “Dems should also call off the attack – don’t make it so that Trump’s only way to survive is to regain the presidency.” And yet, Musk has been making appearances with right-wing political leaders worldwide. Kolodny writes that since he took over Twitter (and renaming it X), Musk has “become more vocal about his political ideology.” 

 

In The Atlanta Black Star, Ashley Williams writes that Musk claimed there was a lack of “news coverage of a shooting spree in Philadelphia that left eight students injured.” Quoting Musk: “Seems to be hardly any coverage of this mass shooting,” adding that the “legacy media is racist against Asians and whites, so only prints crime involving those [races].” There were suspects who were captured, all being black males. So, Musk turned reality on its head, implying that blacks who commit crime are hardly exposed in the media while Asians and whites get much more coverage.

 

Williams quotes reporter Victoria Brownworth, who had this response to Musk: “I have reported on [the mass shootings] repeatedly as new details of the story have evolved. You seem not to know that Philadelphia is a majority Black city and that this story was reported on the national news because you only watch Fox.” Other media sources did cover the shootings.

 

“Free speech is the bedrock of democracy.” So says Musk. But it doesn’t reflect his rhetoric and beliefs.