Elon Musk’s longtime fixation on a white racial majority is intensifying. The richest man in the world posted about how the white race was below menace, made allusions to race science or promoted anti-immigrant conspiracy content material on 26 out of 31 days in January, in accordance to the Guardian’s evaluation of his social media output. The posts, made on his platform X, mirror a renewed embrace of what extremism consultants describe as white supremacist materials.
“Whites are a quickly dying minority,” Musk mentioned on 22 January, a short while before taking the stage at the World Financial Discussion board in Davos, whereas reposting an Irish anti-immigrant influencer’s video about demographic change.
Musk’s posts included him repeatedly claiming white folks face systemic discrimination, endorsing the conspiracy that there is an ongoing genocide towards white folks in nations round the world and selling a declare that white folks can be “slaughtered” by non-whites in the event that they change into a demographic minority.
“When you stripped Elon Musk’s title off of this stuff and confirmed them to me, I’d assume that this was a white supremacist,” mentioned Heidi Beirich, co-founder of the World Mission In opposition to Extremism, who reviewed a number of the posts.
Musk has for years promoted anti-immigrant and far-right content material in his posts, in addition to endorsed rightwing activists and political parties round the globe. The Tesla CEO’s most up-to-date output shows a extra constant and express engagement with white supremacist content material and nativist activists than in the previous, nevertheless, lending them the imprimatur of the world’s richest individual and spreading their concepts to his viewers of over 200 million followers. Beirich mentioned he appeared “deep into the world of white nationalism”.
“The White ‘liberal’ normal for conduct is extraordinarily strict, however is solely utilized to Whites,” Musk mentioned on 26 January, commenting on a put up that claimed there was discrimination towards white conservatives.
Musk’s posts repeatedly echoed distinguished white supremacist narratives and ideologies, mentioned William Braniff, the former director of the Division of Homeland Safety’s workplace for prevention of terrorism and extremism. A number of of Musk’s posts included what Braniff described as “textbook examples” of white supremacist conspiracy theories reminiscent of “the nice alternative” – a perception that liberal elites or Jewish folks are conspiring to use immigration to substitute white populations.
The hazard of Musk’s obsession lies in mainstreaming concepts that are deeply tied to violence and discrimination, in accordance to Braniff, who is now govt director of the Polarization and Extremism Analysis and Innovation Lab (Peril) at American College. “The nice alternative has been an particularly necessary mobilizing narrative for extremely deadly white supremacist assaults in the United States and elsewhere,” he mentioned.
Musk has repeatedly denied he is racist or antisemitic, acknowledged that he condemns terrorism and mentioned he does not advocate for violence. He asserted in a 2024 interview with Don Lemon that he does not subscribe to “nice alternative idea”. He additionally informed Joe Rogan in March final 12 months that he is not a Nazi, weeks after going through condemnations from Jewish teams and the chairman of the World Holocaust Remembrance Heart in Israel over his speech to Germany’s far-right AfD get together by which he told Germans to transfer past their “previous guilt”.
Musk presents a platform for the far-right
Though Musk wrote quite a lot of posts on race and immigration himself final month, a lot of his output concerned reposting far-right activist accounts or replying to them with temporary endorsements reminiscent of a bullseye emoji, implying settlement. On 10 January, Musk replied “sure” in reply to a put up from a white nationalist account that claimed “race communism that destroyed Rhodesia and South Africa are the identical issues they are bringing to America and the remainder of the Occident to flip us into the World Favela”. The creator of the put up beforehand printed a weblog titled How To Construct An American Orania – a reference to the privately owned, whites-only town of Orania in South Africa.
Related interactions befell all through the month. After a far-right influencer posted “they only need to eradicate White folks it’s that easy” in reference to the New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s inauguration speech, Musk replied on 7 January “some folks actually do”. On 9 January, he wrote “true” in a quote-tweet of a put up that claimed white folks can be “slaughtered” as a minority and that “White solidarity is the solely means to survive”. On 16 January, Musk reposted a rightwing influencer’s put up claiming “white genocide is the official Democrat get together platform”. The identical day, he promoted one other rightwing influencer’s anti-diversity put up that used an AI-generated picture of tattooed black girls on Yale’s rowing workforce.
Whereas a few of the accounts Musk interacted with are fringe social media influencers, a number of others are distinguished far-right activists whose extremist views have been well-documented. On 17 January, Musk reposted a screed towards “ethno-cultural upheaval” in Europe from Martin Sellner, far-right Austrian activist, who is the founding father of the ethno-nationalist Identitarian Motion. Musk, who reinstated Sellner’s banned X account in 2024, replied to the anti-immigration put up that “this is merely a press release of truth”.
“Martin Sellner is most likely the most important world white supremacist proper now,” Beirich mentioned. “He’s the one who pushed the nice alternative, and has now pushed the concept of remigration – ethnically cleaning western nations of non-whites.”
Sellner gave a presentation in 2024 at an event in Germany on the logistics of finishing up mass deportations that was attended by neo-Nazis and different extremists. The occasion sparked immense backlash and protests against the far-right throughout the northern European nation. Lawmakers tried to ban him from the nation. The Austrian activist additionally received a €1,500 donation from and communicated with white supremacist Brenton Tarrant, who would later go on to commit a terrorist assault in 2019 that killed 51 folks at two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand.
Sellner rejected being described as a white supremacist and mentioned he respects “the dignity of all others” in a press release to the Guardian, whereas taking credit score for politically mainstreaming the ideas of the nice alternative and remigration. “Now, from Trump to Musk, everybody is speaking about alternative migration, the ethnic vote and remigration,” Sellner mentioned. He moreover claimed that the Potsdam occasion was “misrepresented” by media and that he rejected any type of terrorism. Sellner described his interactions with Tarrant, which included offering to get a drink with Tarrant if he ever visited Austria, as restricted to normal thank-you emails to a donor.
Extremism consultants mentioned the concepts Musk has publicized are deeply tied to a few of the most infamous, violent extremist assaults of the previous decade, together with the 2018 antisemitic assault on the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh and the 2022 racist mass killing of 10 folks at a Buffalo grocery store. The shooter in Buffalo left a 180-page manifesto stuffed with mentions of white supremacist alternative idea.
Musk’s posts additionally mirror an rising embrace of white supremacist figures and speaking factors amongst distinguished Republicans and authorities companies in the previous 12 months. A few of that shift has performed out on X, the place Musk reinstated quite a lot of previously banned accounts reminiscent of distinguished antisemite Nick Fuentes. Federal companies reminiscent of the Division of Homeland Safety have in the meantime posted content that aligns with white supremacist propaganda. Earlier this month, Donald Trump additionally drew widespread backlash after posting a racist video to his Fact Social platform that depicted Barack and Michelle Obama as apes.
Musk has repeatedly mocked those that have criticized his feedback as far-right or racist, framing his views as frequent sense or just reiterating info and statistics. His rhetoric displays a widespread tactic amongst folks on the far-right, consultants say, when extremists try to defend their worldview of an in-group of white folks towards everybody else.
“That reductionist worldview breaks down when folks in your in-group say you’re stuffed with it, that what you’re saying is improper,” Braniff mentioned. “So now the major requirement is to assault the dissenting in-group, to delegitimize them as race traitors and as woke.”
As February started, Musk was nonetheless posting about race and immigration on a constant foundation. He replied to an anti-immigrant activist this week who claimed that Eire’s civilization would finish “as a result of Irish males are afraid of being referred to as racist and upsetting folks from the third world”.
“Such males are pathetic traitors,” Musk responded.
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