March 18, 2024 - 2:45pm
Elon Musk has argued that Americans should stop talking about racism in a new interview with former CNN presenter Don Lemon.
“If we keep talking about [racism] non-stop it will never go away. If we keep making it the central thing, it will never go away,” the billionaire said. “We want to get away from making everything a race or a gender or whatever issue and just treat people like individuals.”
The two sparred over the issue for several minutes, with Lemon mentioning his own experiences of discrimination and Musk reiterating his view that people should be treated as individuals and not encouraged to view themselves as victims.
“If you study history broadly, everyone was a slave,” Musk told Lemon. “We are all descended from slaves […] it’s just a question of when: was it more recent or less recent?”
During an at times fraught interview, Musk was also questioned about his views on the “Great Replacement theory”, which holds that elites are intentionally replacing the population of Western nations with non-white immigrants from the Third World. The Tesla CEO said that he doesn’t subscribe to the theory, but argued that Democrats have an incentive to promote illegal immigration because it helps the party electorally. “You don’t need a conspiracy theory when you have incentives. It is fundamental for the Democratic Party to usher in and foster a large number of illegals […] It helps them win elections.”
When pressed on these claims, the X CEO stated that “House seat apportionment is proportionate to the number of people, not the number of citizens […] without illegals, I believe there would be a net loss in blue states of approximately 20 seats in the House.” What’s more, illegal immigrants also vote in elections — and they usually vote for Democrats, Musk argued.
Musk also discussed his feud with advertisers who pulled their funding from the social media platform he owns, X. Lemon asked him whether advertisers’ decisions weren’t a form of free speech, while Musk insisted that, by pulling ads from the entire site rather than merely from particular content they found objectionable, these advertisers were harming free speech.
“I’m in favour of freedom of speech, and freedom of speech only is relevant when people you don’t like say things you don’t like,” Musk said. “Otherwise it has no meaning.”
Join the discussion
Join like minded readers that support our journalism by becoming a paid subscriber
To join the discussion in the comments, become a paid subscriber.
Join like minded readers that support our journalism, read unlimited articles and enjoy other subscriber-only benefits.
SubscribeEquitism, primes minorities to see racism that is often not there. It relies on white guilt and shame, by inflating wrongs of the past. For a time, it is working on white cultures, but I posit that it is retribalizing white populations as parts of younger white generations rebel against this collective shaming. We are already seeing this with the growth of the far right.
The race narrative is all about class. We are much more likely to see working class black people turn their back on race essentialists than the rise of some far right movement. Poor people in black neighborhoods suffer the most under bail reform and open borders. You can see this shift happening now. Trump might lose the next election, but he will do it with unprecedented support from working class blacks and Hispanics for a Republican candidate.
I hope you’re correct about the unlikelihood of rising tides of Right-wing race essentialism. On this side of the border, my stubborn optimism along those lines is feeing a little shaky. I think we’re already seeing a pendulum swing away from the Left-wing neo-racism, which I regard as less of a violent threat but also despise and lament.
“Unprecendented” since when? Republicans like to mention they were once the party of Lincoln, and (this they don’t emphasize) Reconstruction.
I agree with your implication above on Lemon. I’ve always found him lightweight and mediocre.
Since Bush. 20 years ago.
Don Lemon recalling his own experiences of racism? He’s a multi millionaire who has built a career on being black and gay. I’m sure he has faced discrimination of some sort in his life, but he’s among the wealthiest 1% in the world, during the richest era in history. People who fail to appreciate their own wealth and privilege are beyond contempt. On the bright side, this will be the last we hear of Lemon because he no longer has a privileged platform. He will sink or swim on his own merits – and we all know where that leads.
Yet he doesn’t hesitate to silence people on X that he doesn’t like.
Cracks me up people downvoting this. Just one example of many:
https://www.cnbc.com/2023/06/15/elon-musk-led-twitter-suspended-plainsite-a-prominent-tesla-critic.html
Musk made a judgment that the intention of this person was never “free speech.” It was to create a reflexive avalanche forcing Musk into selling the platform so it could be taken back over by a Leftist that could impose viewpoint suppression. You know he was correct about that too.
This is a classic left-wing, deliberate provocation motivated by malice and ill-will. Its like protesters getting up in someone’s face or blocking the street to place somebody in a lose/lose situation.
Doesn’t sound convincing in the slightest.
What was the user’s end goal, Robbie?
Obviously to be a pain in the butt. Hence forsooth, I refer you to my original comment.
Mystification. Orwellians with zero principles like to provoke people with principles into a Catch 22. Its like when groups that violate the Geneva Convention demand proportional response under the terms of the Geneva Convention.
Hmmm. Seems you have shifted reasoning to more comfortable territory. Yet it is here that Musk is creating unpersons through their cancellation.
Ok i read some more background. You’re holding Musk to an extraordinary standard considering the legal history between these two. This guy is far from just a “critic.”
Ask Robbie K how much money Lemon wanted from Musk!
“People with principles”? I thought we were talking about Elon?
Ah yes the Left Wing Solidarity alliance has decided on their newest villain…the electric car guy.
Well, I find it odd that you describe me thus, given that in my youth and young manhood, I was an ardent Thatcherite/Reaganite. I dislike Elon because he is a creepy weirdo, but he is only a minor villain.
Thank heavens we have Elon to tell us what “free speech” is!
Musk ain’t no saint. That’s for sure. That’s why many of the Twitter file journalists have stepped back their support of him. But life is a series of trade offs and he’s much more committed to free speech than any of the other big tech companies.
Committed to free speech and truth. His other reason for buying Twitter was to procure a data source for training his GrokAI. Unlike Google he is committed to AI based on truth.
“Unlike Google he is committed to AI based on truth“.
Or at the very least his version of truth….
Back in the day he was talking freely bout his fears for a malignant AI. He even approached Obama at the time – who did zero. History will attest to the truth.
I love how dumb you people are!
You’re such a douche.
Obama probably spent the whole conversation thinking “I wish Elon would piss off. He’s such a weirdo”.
Being dismissed is not the same as being censored. The dismissal is not silencing Lemon at all, nor was it intended to. Lemon is free to continue to use X.
Yes, We need more talk of the human race that comes in various shapes and shades of skin colour rather than obsessing over 18th Century bogus racial classifications. Of course we will always notice plenty of people look different to ourselves but why make an issue if it. It just doesn’t matter unless we want to stir up unnecessary trouble.
Committed racist says that we should all stop talking about racism.
Well, well! Painful Sham Socialist pops up again – the Web Bot programmed to behave like some sort of heckler. Weird-city man (like, strictly from Strangeville).
“Painful Sham Socialist”
Is this really the best you can do? You’ve been working on this for months and this is what you come up with?
I’m a bit embarrassed for you right now…
I thought his comment was good. I have given it an uptick.
Have you seen evidence that Elon Musk is a committed racist?
I mostly avoid listening to him, because he is such a complete lunatic.
Aaah, The relic pops ups.
How’s the caviar down at Socialist HQ these days?
Musk is a South African Boer. He was exiled from the country of his birth due to the actions of American Liberals. The Boers lived in South Africa for 500 years. They no longer have a country. WOKE Americans forced his country to remove his tribe from power due to American domestic politics. Now that his tribe are no longer on top, they are being discriminated against and will likely be subject to genocide. Musk got out in time. He resents losing his country due to WOKE Americans.
Sorry, I missed that bit of history in which “American Liberals” caused Afrikaners to be deported from South Africa. Funnily enough, the city in Australia in which I live has large numbers of Afrikaners, but they all seem to have left South Africa of their own free will.
Missed the bit where he said “deported”-which of course implies a completely different action than circumstances which impel someone to relocate for economic or safety reasons.I live in Berkshire and there has been a steady influx of white South Africans over the last 25 years-almost exclusively professionals of every description-and they all give the same reasons for moving-which is not deportation.
The word “exiled”, which he did use, implies some level of compulsion. The fact was that when everyone (not just white people) in South Africa got the vote, the voters voted for a government the white people didn’t like. That caused a lot of them to move to other places where (to my observation at least) they still carry on as if they were the ruling class.
It’s all very well to assert that Afrikaners have left South Africa of their own free will; but they faced substantial discrimination on account of their skin colour and from many other angles too. It would be hard to justify saying that those Jews who left Germany in the 1930s did so of their own free will. They faced discrimination and saw what was in store for them if they remained in Germany. Ditto South African Whites, whether Afrikaner or English by origin. Those diminishing numbers who remain in South Africa are not generally comfortable with the future they face.
Oh, that is interesting. Still, I have a very vague recollection that before universal suffrage in South Africa, the white people who lived there discriminated against the black people who lived there just a teensy bit. The phrase “You reap what you sow” springs to mind.
The “You reap what you sow” argument is so commonly employed in this sort of context and is frankly unconvincing. How many generations should reap what their fathers sowed? And is the official discrimination against white South Africans by black South Africans justified on that basis? This argument teeters on a moral precipice and lacks substance and nuance.
Elon Musk’s comments remind me of the excellent book The End of Race Politics: Arguments for a Colorblind America by Coleman Hughes, a young black man who thinks and writes clearly without any taint of arguing. The book’s well worth a read. (Or watch his TED talk if you don’t have the book.)
I had this book in the gym on the floor beside me as I lay on a bench getting ready to start a set of bench presses. A black guy with a headset on walking past pointed to the book and looked at me. I thought he was angry. Instead, he smiled, gave me a thumbs up and walked away.
A point of agreement. I haven’t read the book yet but I admire Hughes and recommend his recent conversation about it with Yascha Mounk of Persuasion:
https://www.persuasion.community/p/hughes2?utm_campaign=email-half-post&r=7×231&utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email
Why do you people insist on making up these ludicrous stories? This one is a doozy!
I’m trying to imagine the daily routine of Champagne Socialist. He obviously chews on every word of an online mag that he despises, angrily disagreeing with almost every article and every commenter, and taking the time & trouble to peck out his disagreements.
I have to assume he also reads SOMEthing that caters more to his delusions, as well, just as thoroughly, and also chimes in over there. How does he find time to eat??
You are among the many, many people who spend all day thinking about me.
I, on the other hand, give very little thought to any of you. I drop in, quickly survey the silliness, dispense a few bon mots and I am gone again.
You people might be less furious about everything if you tried being more like me…
I’m far from furious, believe me. I admit that your comments used to raise my ire, but the longer you’ve gone on, the more entertaining you’ve become. Thank you! and carry on, please! No sarcasm is intended.
(And by the way, FarFromFurious would be an excellent nom de plume. Better than Sham Painfully Antisocial or whatevs).
If I was going to make up a story, it would be a better one than that.
I have always had an exceptionally low regard for Musk, and nothing in that interview changed my position.
He must be traumatised by your opinion
I must say I feel some affinity with those who bullied him at school, although on balance they probably share the blame for making him the person he is today.
In the UK Black is not one group.
Black families from Africa =notably West Africa- are in the top quartile of economic and social success. Whereas Black Caribbean Folk tend to be much lower down the success scale.
Could this be because those who were sold into slavery were sold by their smarter black folk in West Africa .
If you say so.
However, on planet earth, Nigeria is falling apart economically.
Despite huge oil wealth.
Could you mention any functioning African country this black brain boxes are in charge of?
One more reason to admire Elon.
Like Trump and Jordan Peterson, Mr. Musk is dependent on no validator or bank, and is free to speak the truth. (Altho as of this week, Trump may lose membership in that exclusive club; temporarily, we can hope). Who among the Woke can say the same?
I doubt I will ever have a reason to admire Elon….
It is now illegal to think of an elephant. A trans elephant, gay, black etc elephant. I know you’re thinking of one. What a bad person you are.
Reading through the comments, my brain gets so overwhelmed. It seems like there’s so much to say on this. Just like Musk’s saying- ” “We want to get away from making everything a race or a gender or whatever issue and just treat people like individuals.” and “If you study history broadly, everyone was a slave.”
As long as we keep arguing about this, history repeats itself? XO