Elon Musk’s descent into right-wing edgelord was incredibly predictable. For a man supposedly running multiple companies, he is extremely online and attuned to a certain puerile segment of the internet, to the point of embarrassment. So, given he has the sense of humor of a teen on 4Chan, it’s unsurprising he’d be swayed by the sort of silly conspiracy theories that abound on the infamous website.
As a recent tweet from the emerald heir shows, he’s been taken in by a classic far-right talking point with antisemitic undertones. However, the saddest thing about it is not that he’s being a bigot, but he’s only doing so because Soros dumped all of his Tesla shares. Yet another classic Elon tantrum.
George Soros is a billionaire businessman and philanthropist behind the Open Society Foundations, a grant-giving network that supports groups that advance justice, education, public health, and independent media, all around the world. He was born in Budapest to a secular Jewish family and survived the Nazi occupation of his home country after his family bought fake documents that claimed they were Christian, before moving to the U.K. after the war.
Magneto is a powerful mutant from the X-Men franchise. Born with the ability to generate and control magnetic fields, he is also a Holocaust survivor. The character has veered between supervillain and anti-hero throughout his time in the comics and films, but generally speaking is known for the former, intent on subjugating humanity as he believes it can’t co-exist peacefully with mutants.
Because of his cultural background and the fact he gives so much money away, Soros has become a magnet for conspiracy theories of all kinds, especially those which tend to be antisemitic dog whistles. He’s been accused of everything from being behind the European migrant crisis to helping to steal the 2020 presidential election. So, it’s not exactly unfair to say Musk is making a negative association between the two, as opposed to just pointing out they both saw the horrors of the Holocaust.
Musk, who grew up wealthy in apartheid South Africa, is no stranger to making baseless claims that reinforce dangerous conspiracy theories. Of course, when somebody in the comments pointed out that maybe it wasn’t best to pile on to somebody using antisemitic dog whistles, the Twitter owner replied in a way that was both hysterical and sanctimonious.
Now, we’re not saying Musk doesn’t have bigoted beliefs, nor that he doesn’t believe in dumb conspiracy theories. But, really, the man is as transparent as clingfilm, and it’s clear this is all because his feelings are hurt about Soros selling the Tesla stock. He’s known to be pretty emotional, especially when it comes to people questioning his ability as a business leader, but since his disastrous acquisition of Twitter, even some of his old fans are cottoning on to the fact he’s just a rich kid who bought some decent companies, and not some visionary. And, a big reason for that is his outbursts like this. He even had a similar reaction when Bill Gates shorted his Tesla stocks.
With the news Musk was going to step down as CEO of Twitter, many people figured the social media giant might be heading back to some semblance of normality. However, it’s clear he’ll still be having a big part to play on the site, and for now, it seems we’ll still end up being forced to see all of his silly, off-the-cuff thoughts and terrible takes.