Elon Musk’s father says his billionaire son cannot be racist because he had Black friends as a boy – namely, his servants! As if the ‘Black friends’ defence wasn’t bad enough, Errol Musk makes it worse by assuming the power relations between his son and servants were equal. He is either woefully – or willfully – ignorant of the fact that these ‘servants,’ as Black South Africans, were forced into subservient roles by a regime designed to oppress them. Pointing to good relations between (essentially) master and servant as proof of non-racism ignores the obvious. The servants had no choice but to be friendly to their boss’s son. The extreme power imbalance in these interactions made it impossible to see them as genuine connections rather than coerced dynamics.
Elon Musk himself has done little to assuage doubt. The billionaire endorsed a tweet suggesting Black students at Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) have lower IQs and shouldn’t become pilots. He adopted a similar stance during an interview with Don Lemon, attributing hypothetical adverse medical outcomes to Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion programmes despite evidence to the contrary. When swastikas and nooses were found at Tesla, not only did the company (whose largest shareholder is Musk) refuse to investigate complaints or take steps to end abuse, it retaliated against Black employees who complained or opposed the abuse.
The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree. When explaining why he imported emeralds from an unregistered mine in Zambia, Errol Musk said, “[otherwise] you would wind up with nothing, because the Blacks would take everything from you.” He also fondly remembers apartheid South Africa, describing it as a “well-run, law-abiding country with virtually no crime at all.” Failing to recognise the apartheid regime itself as a crime – against humanity, no less.
Sources
https://futurism.com/civil-rights-groups-horrified-elon-musk-racist
https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2024/03/elon-musk-racist-tweets-science-video/