Elon Musk has reappeared in public to assure the public that he is 'not racist.' Last month, in an interview with the editor-in-chief of The Economist, Zenni Minton Beddos, Musk shared his thoughts on several of his key projects: artificial superintelligence, creating billionaires, and anti-Muslim racism.
When asked about his anti-Muslim views, Musk did not deny them. Instead, he carefully repeated tired clichés concerning 'rape and murder,' 'contradictory views,' and 'imposing rules and laws'—clichés that have long circulated in ultra-right and mainstream discourse about Islam and Muslims.
Of course, he implied that he could not be anti-Muslim because he rationally opposes violence, lack of integration, and the erosion of democracy. However, to avoid falling into a trap, it must be acknowledged that whether Musk holds anti-Muslim views in private does not actually matter. The focus should be on what kind of political figure he has become.
Musk is not just another billionaire with racist views. He is not merely commenting on or predicting racial conflicts. He is an entrepreneur inciting racial war. Through one of the world's largest communication platforms, Musk is reconstructing racial thinking, reasserting racial antagonisms, amplifying myths of white decline, and presenting culture as a struggle for racial power.
Racial ideology of domination
It seems Musk believes that being anti-Muslim is not the same as being racist. He is not alone in this view. In many parts of Europe and North America, commentators and governments have insisted for years that Islamophobia is not a form of racism. They argue that racism is related to biology, while Muslims constitute a cultural and religious group.
Nevertheless, racism has never depended solely on biological differences. It has always involved attributing fixed characteristics to populations and viewing these characteristics as evidence of immutable differences. Culture has been the key mechanism through which this process occurs and continues to occur. This is how Musk speaks about Muslims.
He shapes the image of Muslims as a population inherently prone to violence, misogyny, and despotism. When he refers to 'rape and murder,' 'contradictory values,' and 'imposing laws and rules,' he portrays Muslims as a population with an inherent tendency toward violence, misogyny, and despotism. He separates Muslims as a uniquely distinct human category.
Furthermore, Musk apparently believes that Muslims pose a threat to Western ways of life: a powerful anti-Western civilizational force intended to dominate and ultimately destroy whiteness. This racialization serves an important ideological function. It allows asylum seekers, migrants, and immigrants in general to be viewed as Muslim, and allows Musk to present demographic changes as evidence of 'demographic replacement' and 'white genocide.'
We know that the myth of 'unprecedented white decline' is one of Musk's favorite topics. Only last January did he post related content on 26 out of 31 days, promoting the great replacement theory. In one post on X (formerly Twitter), Musk wrote: 'White people are a rapidly dying minority,' which garnered over 17 million views and about 150 thousand likes.
Technically, he is correct because all people die—and populations die off if they do not have enough children. This is why Musk advocates for prolific reproduction, an imperative he himself took seriously by having at least 14 children (to date) with several women. But only if these reproducing individuals are white and intelligent, as he believes he is. He once noted: 'If every subsequent generation of intelligent people has fewer children, that is probably bad.'
His position is clear: highly intelligent people should have more children. And given his inclination toward racial science, it is not difficult to guess whom Musk means by highly intelligent people. The Nazi gesture he made at Donald Trump's inauguration in early 2025 gives a telling indication.
But Musk is not just a 'pro-natalist face,' a whitewashed, denazified euphemism for eugenics; he also serves as an architect of the modern far-right wing. When asked in an interview with The Economist whether he supports the far-right wing, Musk reacted to the 'absurd characteristic' of 'ordinary people.'
Musk wants us to think that he is merely a supporter of far-right politics. He prefers to present himself as the voice of ordinary people; a megaphone for views that everyone has always had in mind. Speaking the truth, not an ideologue. However, the reality is completely different.
Creating enemies of the people
Thanks to his vast wealth and ownership of one of the world's largest social media platforms, Musk is not just commenting on political 'trends' initiated by the people. He is actively helping to organize modern far-right politics. Musk invested millions in Trump's election campaign. He supported far-right political movements around the world, including the National Rally in France, Restore Britain, and Alternative for Germany. He worked to preserve the power of far-right politicians such as Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
He restored the X accounts belonging to prominent far-right agitators, including Katie Hopkins, Martin Sellner, and, of course, Tommy Robinson. This is political power, not passive observation. Therefore, calling Musk merely a supporter of the far-right wing is an understatement. Musk is a key architect of far-right movements worldwide.
What is even more significant is that his racial architecture includes bloody violence. Musk has repeatedly warned of a 'civil war,' encouraging his followers to believe that they are facing an existential threat requiring extrajudicial violence. He stated at the Unite the Kingdom rally in London: 'You choose violence or not, violence will come to you. You either fight or you die.'
Musk is not just predicting destructive violence. He presents it as inevitable and morally necessary for a proportional response. Consider Musk's decision to broadcast Citizen Vigilante to millions of subscribers on X. The film depicts Europe as a civilization under siege by male migrants portrayed as sexual predators, and proposes vigilante violence as a solution. His message is clear: the state has failed; ordinary people must act.
Weeks earlier, Musk amplified the racial narrative surrounding the attack in Belfast, labeling it an attempt at decapitation and helping to inflame the racial tension he helped create. This is why calling Musk an entrepreneur inciting racial war is not a hyperbole. Entrepreneurs do not just foresee markets; they create them. In the same way, Musk does not just foresee racial conflict. He invests in its narratives, expands its audience, and lowers the moral barriers against mass violence.
Musk belongs to a history of political figures such as Joseph McCarthy, Adolf Hitler, and Maximilien Robespierre, who claimed they were merely describing reality, when in fact they were creating enemies of the people.
Ideological framework
Musk claims he is not racist. By this point, we know that this question is irrelevant. Whether Musk considers himself racist in private is far less important than what his politics do: they construct a racial vision in which Muslims become a civilizational enemy, demographic changes become proof of white decline, and violence is reinterpreted as racial self-defense.
The danger is not in what Musk believes. The danger is in what he teaches millions of others to believe—and what they may ultimately decide to do because of it.
Musk provides an ideological framework for modern racial war. Through his wealth, platform, and exceptional influence, he does more than just amplify racial thinking and grievances. He organizes them into a coherent worldview. This is why Musk is not just another wealthy white person with racist views. He represents something more significant: a new type of political actor who combines immense economic power, digital infrastructure, algorithmic reach, and racial mythology to create conditions for the possibility of bloody racial conflict and mass unrest. The danger is not what Musk believes. The danger is what he teaches millions of others to believe—and what they may ultimately decide to do because of it.
