Elon Musk calls US media and schools ‘racist against whites and Asians’

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Tesla Chief Executive Elon Musk speaks at his company’s factory in Fremont, California.

Noah Berger | Reuters

Elon Musk, the CEO of SpaceX, Tesla and Twitter, accused “the media” and “elite colleges and high schools” of being “racist” against whites and Asians, espousing his views without providing evidence on Sunday.

Musk posted his comments on Twitter, where he has nearly 130 million followers, in response to news that media outlets nationwide decided to cut the “Dilbert” comic book from syndication after its creator, Scott Adams, delivered a racist tirade in a video. on his YouTube channel last week.

In the video, Adams discussed a poll by right-wing Rasmussen Reports that found 26% of black respondents disagreed with the statement “It’s OK to be white.” The phrase referenced in their poll has been called a “hate slogan” by the Anti-Defamation League. In his video, Adams called black people who rejected that phrase a “hate group.”

Adams also said he personally chose to live in a community where few or no black people lived, then advised his white viewers to “run away from black hell,” saying he didn’t “want to have anything to do with them.”

Adams’ video was posted during Black History Month in the United States, which was established in 1976 by President Gerald Ford as a time to honor the struggles and contributions of black Americans.

Among the news outlets that dropped “Dilbert” were the Los Angeles Times, The Oregonian, The Cleveland Plain Dealer, The Washington Post, and USA Today.

Musk’s track record

Brian Levin, civil rights attorney and director of the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism at California State University, said in response to Musk’s tweets:

“Systemic racism requires not only widespread bigotry within a group, but also a structural component that allows discrimination and oppression to be imposed on a minority due to an advantage of access and power. South African white billionaire who recently lost a high in a profiled racial discrimination case may not be best placed to offer advice.”

As CNBC previously reported, a federal court in San Francisco has ruled that Tesla must pay a former worker, Owen Diaz, for damages after enduring a hostile work environment and racist abuse at the company’s factory. where he previously worked as an elevator operator.

Additionally, the EEOC, a federal agency charged with enforcing civil rights laws against workplace discrimination, issued a case decision against Tesla, according to a company financial filing last year.

Prior to the EEOC’s conclusion, the California Civil Rights Department, formerly known as the Department of Fair Employment and Housing, sued Tesla after a three-year investigation, alleging widespread racial discrimination at Tesla factories and facilities in across the state.

The CRD alleged that Tesla kept black workers in lower-level positions within the company, even when they had the skills and experience to be promoted to higher positions; black workers assigned to more demanding, dangerous and dirty work in their facilities; and retaliated against black workers who officially complained about what they endured, including racial slurs used by managers.

Tesla called the CRD lawsuit “misguided” and later countersued the agency.

Data on racism

Musk made his statements about “the media” and certain colleges and high schools in the United States without presenting any evidence.

Specifically, he wrote, “The media is racist. He then added, “For a *very* long time the American media was racist against non-whites, now it’s racist against whites and Asians. The same thing happened with elite colleges and high schools. in America. Maybe they can try not to be racist.”

According to Pew Research, newsroom workers are much more likely to be white (and male) than American workers in general. In film and television, according to McKinsey research, “black talent is underrepresented in the industry, especially off-screen.” Less than 6% of screenwriters, directors and producers of films produced in the United States are black, McKinsey found.

According to the most recent data available from the US Census Bureau, approximately 29% of non-Hispanic whites in the United States have attained a bachelor’s degree or higher levels of education, approximately 18.4% of blacks in the United States have attained this level education, and about 51.3% of Asians have done so.

Despite the educational level of Asian Americans, Asians are underrepresented in leadership positions in university libraries and higher education in the United States, according to a study by Mihoko Hosoi, published in the Journal of Library Administration in 2022.

Musk also responded to a Twitter account that said unarmed white people affected by police violence get only a fraction of the media attention given to black people injured or killed by police. Musk claimed the media coverage was “very disproportionate to promoting a false narrative.”

According to a study by the Brookings Institute, “black people are 3.5 times more likely than white people to be killed by the police when black people are not attacking or do not have a weapon”, and “black teenagers are 21 times more likely than white teenagers to be killed.” killed by the police.”

Hate speech on Twitter

Imran Ahmed, CEO and Founder of the Center for Countering Digital Hate, said in response to Musk’s tweets: “Elon Musk is looking to portray himself as a bizarre, bizarre champion of anti-racism when in reality, when he took over Twitter, it has made a series of disturbing decisions to change its rules to welcome racist hate back to the platform and, as our research has shown, to profit from the controversy and attention that the hate generates.”

Ahmed also called on remaining advertisers to reevaluate whether they want to spend their budget on Twitter, given Musk’s beliefs and the changes he has made to the Twitter platform.

Since leading a $44 billion leveraged takeover of Twitter late last year and naming himself “Chief Twit,” or CEO, Musk has sparked controversy and lost money in the social media sector.

Under Musk’s watch, Twitter restored the accounts of some previously banned and divisive figures, including neo-Nazi website founder Andrew Anglin. His moves led to an unprecedented rise in hate speech on the platform, the Center for Countering Digital Hate found, and sparked an immediate outcry from civil rights leaders.

Hundreds of Twitter’s top advertisers have since paused or reduced their ad spend. One firm estimated Twitter’s ad revenue fell 70% in December from a year earlier, Reuters reported. Musk acknowledged in a November tweet that the company suffered a “massive drop in revenue” after advertisers suspended spending on the social media platform.

Musk and representatives from Twitter, SpaceX and Tesla did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

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