Elon Musk speaks at the Vivatech fair, Europe's largest startup and tech event, in Paris on June 16, 2023.Michel Euler/AP
British Labour Party leadership accused Elon Musk of inciting violence on social media ahead of massive ongoing white supremacist, anti-immigration riots centered in Belfast, Northern Ireland.
“It’s appalling. Anyone that is seeking to drive and exploit a situation like this to drive their own political agenda is grievously wrong and doing damage,” Labour Party Chair Anna Turley told LBC News on Wednesday, in reference to Musk’s remarks. “We’ve seen children, families having to flee their homes on the streets of Belfast last night.”
On Tuesday night, rioters reportedly lit buildings and vehicles on fire and broke into and damaged homes, with at least some targeting people of color, in response to news that a Sudanese refugee with legal status was charged with attempted murder for stabbing and attempting to behead another man on Monday night.
As far-right activists called for “mass protest” across the UK early Tuesday, Musk quoted one of the viral posts, writing, “Only by protesting REPEATEDLY and LOUDLY will there be any change!!”
What’s the “change” Musk is demanding? A short list of some his activity on X on Tuesday morning:
- Tuesday 11:03am ET: Musk posts: “The truth is that there are VASTLY more hate crimes, especially aggravated rape and murder, per person by Blacks against Whites than the other way around.”
- Tuesday 11:27am ET: Musk promotes a clip of remarks he made to a crowd last September via video during a separate anti-immigration protest in the UK where he said, “Whether you choose violence or not, violence is coming to you. You either fight back, or you die.”
- Tuesday 11:32am ET: Musk posts “This is the way” in response to Rupert Lowe, a right-wing member of Parliament vowing that his political party, Restore Britain, will “aim to prosecute officials and politicians who knowingly placed dangerous third world savages in our communities”—a campaign that will “apply retrospectively.”
He continued into Wednesday:
- Wednesday 8:48am ET: Musk boosts a post claiming that “the left” conducted the “greatest rhetorical heist of the century” by using the word “racist” to counter criticisms of their policies.
- And about an hour later: Musk reposts a graphic depicting a judge beating a person holding a “White Lives Matter” sign with their gavel.
Elon Musk is pressing for a race war, where the violence from the left requires one to “fight back, or die.”
It’s a strange and perhaps fitting irony that Musk’s rhetoric comes the same week he could turn into the world’s first trillionaire with a SpaceX initial public offering that could tank your retirement fund.
