• The billionaire has been causing controversy by posting and promoting Islamophobic messages and misinformation on the social media platform.
• The Owner Tesla and Space X used the Southport stabbings and UK riots in a desperate bid to boost activity on X by drawing in far-right attention.
The past two weeks have been the most unnerving and frustrating for Muslims ever since the government-led campaign which targeted thosewho took part in pro-Palestine protests.
To quell tensions, Muslims like Imam Adam Kelwick of Abdullah Quillam Society Mosque, Liverpool – the Imam who hugged a far-right protestor, have been working hard on the ground to break the flow of hate and disinformation coming from far-right and Zionist channels that led people to riot on the UK streets.
Billionaire Elon Musk, however, decided that not enough had been done to target and hurt Muslims.
Xenophobic and Disgusting
On Saturday he decided to upload a post on X that would be considered textbook Islamophobic. The crude, vulgar and offensive post by design,is likely to trigger Muslims and people of colour in the way it tries to stereotype religion, race and gender.
Owing to the emphasis on intentionally illustrating Muslims in this way,whether the UK Government will act on this post, by calling it out asIslamophobic, anti-Muslim, or inciting hatred towards the police remains to be seen.
As this is not the first time Musk has acted in such a brazen way, we can only wonder why the man who hails from apartheid-era South Africawould want to denigrate Muslims to such a level.
Inciting Violence and Islamophobia
With almost 800 far-right extremists arrested and over 350 charged, the UK government must consider whether Musk be included in the group that continually and recklessly encouraged the violence.
The likes of Tommy Robinson, Andrew Tate, Nigel Farage and other white extremists incited violence and rioting by initially making false claims about the Southport killer being a Muslim refugee who arrived inthe UK last year, when he was in actual fact, a 17-year-old UK-bornChristian named Axel Rudakubana, who used to be a child actor for the BBC’s Children in Need.
Musk has allowed the misinformation to spread incessantly on X from far-right individuals and other Islamophobic groups since the Southport killings, to the point where even Zionist Keir Starmer was making him aware of his responsibilities.
“Let me also say to large social media companies and those who run them: violent disorder was clearly whipped up online.
“That is also a crime. It is happening on your premises, and the law must be upheld everywhere.”
Since then, Musk has posted and promoted posts which would be considered not only inflammatory, racist and Islamophobic, but also inciting actual violence against everyone.
From a comment he made to divide communities by describing “civil war is inevitable” when responding to a post from a far-right group, orby lessening the value of Muslim lives at a time when extremists had been specifically targeting Muslims, Musk is taking every opportunity he can get to promote his agenda whatever that may be.
On Friday, a man named Richard David Williams of Flintshire in Wales was convicted and jailed for encouraging people to take part in a riot and sharing a derogatory meme about migrants in a local Facebook group dedicated to the riots.
In the same way that action was taken against Williams, Keir Starmermust decide whether the likes of Robinson, Tate, Musk and other far-right groups should face similar consequences for encouraging the riots.
Government Reaction
Despite Musk’s continued targeting of Muslims, it did not change Starmer’s view on the riots.
Starmer deemed the situation to be nothing more than “far-right thuggery”, despite calls from MPs across the UK and other Muslim organisations to recognise the Islamophobic nature of these attacks,owing to the numerous Masjids that had been attacked or targeted by far-right extremists.
As a result of the inaction on the Prime Minister’s part, Musk continuesto use misinformation and false narratives in response to Starmer’s online posts, gaslighting extremists and blaming Muslims as the peopleresponsible for everything that has happened since the Southport Killings.
Musk has even echoed extremist rhetoric by also labelling Starmer as ‘two-tier Keir’. Derived from “two-tier policing” and propagated by the likes of Tommy Robinson, Laurence Fox and Newark MP Robert Jenrick in response to the pro-Palestinian protests, it has been used to suggest that police have been dealing more harshly with people on the right of the political spectrum than on the left.
Recently Musk re-tweeted an unchecked post from a far-right extremist, which described an article written for the Telegraph. The post he promoted was eventually found to be fake.
As a result of the amount of misinformation used to incite the riots online, Starmer empowered the Crown Prosecution Service Direct,which deals with online crimes, to swiftly investigate, charge and prosecute individuals domestic and overseas who had been inciting violence online, much of which they have already acted on.
The British government has also been facing increasing pressure to implement laws that regulate harmful online content following the far-right rioting in the country that targeted Muslims.
Although an Online Safety Bill, which will give media regulator Ofcom the power to penalise social media companies if they do not police content inciting violence or terrorism, was passed into law last year, it has yet to be implemented. The law’s implementation and enforcement is not expected until early next year, leading to some calling for a quicker rollout.
Attack on Churchill Statue and Nazi Salute to Cenotaph
While Musk continued to promote the far-right agenda over the past two weeks, key incidents that took place in London at the time of the riots where overlooked by mainstream media.
The statue of Winston Churchill was subject to ‘Black Lives Matter’ protests in June 2020, where the notion of two-tier policing is said to originate, according to Nigel Farage.
After it was vandalised, far-right extremists tried to protect the statue in the days that followed. Four years later, the same extremists came back to the Churchill statue, only to attack it with flares.
It was also reported that Nazi salutes were performed at the Cenotaph that commemorates the World War One soldiers of which were 400,000 Muslims. It is here that over 100 extremists were reported to have been arrested that day.
Neither of these reports were reported on by mainstream media, except for the number of arrests made with the focus kept firmly on the violence, rather than the intended purpose of the violence – to perform hate crimes.
Musk could have used his platform to highlight these incidents but maintained his focus on stirring up more division between people using racial hatred and Islamophobia, whilst remaining unchallenged.
Polarised Family History
During the riots, Musk’s estranged daughter launched a lengthy tirade on social media against him.
What immediately jumps out from the public dressing down she has given, is the racial connotation used in the post to describe Musk’s view of the Arabic language as the “language of the enemy”. The fact she recollects his remarks from 14 years ago when aged six with her now being aged 20, suggests Musk may have held contempt towards Muslims for much longer than he has led on.
It is even more repugnant that rather than heeding his own child’s words, Musk chose to put out the post criticising the UK justice system to appease right-wing extremists and most importantly, at the expense of sullying Muslims.
According to a biographical article written in The Atlantic, Musk’s grandfather, Joshua Haldeman lived in Canada before moving to South Africa owing to his staunch support for the apartheid regime.
“Haldeman writings reveal a radical conspiracy theorist who expressed racist, anti-Semitic, and antidemocratic views repeatedly, and over the course of decades”.
Musk’s biography described his grandfather as “a daredevil adventurer with strongly held opinions” and “quirky conservative populist views”.
Elon’s father Errol Musk was a member of the Progressive Federal Party, the primary political parliamentary opposition to apartheid.
Failing Businesses and Craving Hate for Money
As the xenophobic charge Musk is leading online continues to stoke racial and religious tensions, the thought of how he has changed this much and what or who is incentivising him to do this comes to mind.
In September 2023, Musk threatened to sue the Anti-Defamation League for $22 billion over its complaints about anti-Semitism on X but has since changed his stance after visiting the Israelis, two months into the genocide of Gaza, where his support has continued for them ever since.
In a report published by the America’s Centre for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH) titled ‘How X accounts are exploiting the Israel-Gaza conflict to grow and profit’, anti-Jewish and anti-Muslim actors grew 4times as quickly on X, exploiting the Gaza genocide and Elon Musk’s policy changes.
The key points from the report noted that:
• “Since the outbreak of the Israel-Gaza conflict on October 7, accounts posting anti-Jewish and anti-Muslim content have seen a sharp rise in followers on X (Twitter)”.
• “10 hateful accounts studied in a new report have seen their followings grow 4x quicker – successfully exploiting content moderation failures as well as boosted visibility for paid-for ‘X Premium’ accounts”.
• “Report finds that X profits from anti-Jewish and anti-Muslim content in relation to Israel-Gaza, serving ads from legacy brands near hate speech and misinformation”.
Imran Ahmed, CEO and founder of the CCDH, said:
“Musk has effectively welcomed back the worst hate actors to his platform with open arms and given them tools to turn war and human suffering into clout or potentially even cold, hard cash.”
“The public and advertisers need to know more about the symbiotic, profitable relationship between X and hate-peddling ‘influencers.”
Musk has posted many more misleading images, videos and memes with unproven narratives related to the rioting in the UK, which havebeen read by tens of millions of users, according to his site’s own metrics, some of which have been widely shared on right-wing accounts on his platform.
In one post, he suggested Muslim communities were receiving undue police protection, which had been viewed 54 million times.
As the owner of Tesla and SpaceX, he has also been accused of being an “attention seeker” and “PR manager for the far right” who is courting controversy to drive engagement on X.
It should be of no surprise that because of his continued campaign to promote far-right rhetoric, Musk’s other brands particularly Tesla are beginning to suffer as people are switching off and turning away from the car manufacturer.
Tesla’s position as a market leader is beginning to show signs of decline. Their US market share dropped below 50% according to Business Insider, which according to client testimonies is a result of Musk bringing toxicity to the brand.
In this tumultuous period, Musk has avoided making any direct contact with any mainstream media news channels or independent outlets and is doing all his talking via X.
When he reposted an unverified clip of an “armed Muslim patrol” on their way to “attack journalists”. Channel 4 journalist Krishnan Guru Murthy asked: “Do you want to do an interview about this? You are causing a lot of waves here in Britain at a very dangerous time.” His query was met with silence, not that it was likely to garner a response in such an open way.
With the blatant and sadistic targeting of Muslims on X, Musk has shown he too is happy to go to the same lengths as the leaders of the West.
Whether accidentally or meaningfully, Musk has inadvertently become a xenophobic media mogul. With a far-reaching extremist following while pushing to control the narrative across different industries using a single channel.
