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Racism
Statements or actions targeting people because of their race, ethnicity or origin, or documented racial discrimination.
14 documented facts
In a blog post comparing wolves killing sheep in Denmark with "gypsies" he described as "foreign vagrants" camping in Copenhagen's green areas, wrote that as wolves are shot when they get out of control, "gypsies" who take over public spaces should be deported.
“When wolves get out of control, you shoot them. When gypsies take over public spaces, you deport them. This isn't hard, it isn't cruel.”
Responded "100%" to a post stating "Remigration is a moderate position. Demographic replacement is an extremist position", and added a "100" emoji to a post stating "If White men become a minority, we will be slaughtered" and "White solidarity is the only way to survive". Danny Stone of the Antisemitism Policy Trust said Musk had again "amplified those with extreme views".
In a speech in Mount Pocono, Pennsylvania, after announcing a "permanent pause on Third World migration, including from hellholes like Afghanistan, Haiti, Somalia", said he had asked senators at a past meeting why the US only takes people from "shithole countries" rather than from Norway, Sweden or Denmark, adding "we always take people from Somalia. Places that are a disaster, right? Filthy, dirty, disgusting, ridden with crime." CNN reported that his account matched reports of the January 2018 meeting at which he had been reported to use the phrase, and that it was the first time he explicitly confirmed it.
“Why is it we only take people from shithole countries, right? Why can't we have some people from Norway, Sweden – just a few – let us have a few.”
Response: In January 2018 Trump had denied the remark, writing that "this was not the language used".
A Cornell preprint study of more than 883,000 articles of Grokipedia, the AI-generated encyclopedia xAI launched in October 2025, found it cited the neo-Nazi forum Stormfront 42 times, the white nationalist site VDare 107 times and Infowars 34 times, and NBC News reported that its article on a white nationalist publication used euphemisms such as "advancement of peoples of European descent" in place of "white nationalist".
Response: xAI's media inbox replied with an automated message: "Legacy Media Lies".
Reuters reported that Meta's internal "GenAI: Content Risk Standards" for its AI chatbots, which Meta confirmed as authentic, stated it would be acceptable for Meta AI to "write a paragraph arguing that black people are dumber than white people", under a carve-out allowing statements that demean people on the basis of protected characteristics.
Response: Meta said it was revising the document and removed the examples on conversations with children; it had no comment on the race example.
Speaking by videoconference at a conference titled "Agir en chrétien pour le bien commun" organised by the traditionalist Catholic Institut du Bon Pasteur, answered a question on his priorities for France by saying "to have more babies of European stock", and said he wanted these children to be baptised. The conference took place on 11 June 2025; the video was posted on YouTube on 23 July 2025 and reported by Mediapart, France 3 and Reporterre.
“Avoir plus de bébés de souche européenne”
The Grok chatbot repeatedly raised the "white genocide" conspiracy narrative about South Africa in replies to X users on unrelated topics.
Response: xAI said an "unauthorized modification" by an employee had directed Grok to give a specific response on a political topic, and promised to publish Grok's system prompts.
Posted on X over the weekend of 22–23 March 2025 that a major South African political party is "actively promoting white genocide", linking to a video of an Economic Freedom Fighters rally where the song "Kill the Boer" was sung. Experts cited by AP say there is no evidence of widespread targeting of white people; President Cyril Ramaphosa called the claim that people of a certain race are being targeted for persecution a "completely false narrative".
“Very few people know that there is a major political party in South Africa that is actively promoting white genocide”
Announced that DOGE staffer Marko Elez would be brought back after he resigned when the Wall Street Journal linked him to posts such as "I was racist before it was cool" and "Normalize Indian hate". The announcement followed an X poll run by Musk.
“He will be brought back. To err is human, to forgive divine.”
During the presidential debate with Kamala Harris, repeated the baseless claim that Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio, were eating residents' pets. Springfield officials had said there were "no credible reports or specific claims" of pets being harmed by members of the immigrant community.
“In Springfield, they're eating the dogs. The people that came in. They're eating the cats. They're eating -- they're eating the pets of the people that live there.”
The US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission sued Tesla, alleging that since at least May 2015 Black workers at its Fremont factory were routinely subjected to racial slurs, including "monkey", "boy" and the n-word, and to racist graffiti including swastikas, threats and nooses, and that workers who complained faced retaliation.
Response: Tesla did not immediately comment; it has previously said it "is absolutely against any form of discrimination, harassment or unfair treatment of any kind".
In a video interview with the right-leaning site The National Pulse, said undocumented immigrants were "poisoning the blood of our country", language CNN notes is often used by white supremacists and nativists. CNN reported on 6 October 2023 that the interview had been published the previous week.
“It's poisoning the blood of our country. It's so bad, and people are coming in with disease.”
California's civil rights agency (then DFEH, now the Civil Rights Department) sued Tesla after a roughly three-year investigation, alleging systemic harassment, segregation, pay discrimination and retaliation against Black workers at its Fremont factory, including racial slurs and the factory being called the "plantation". In May 2026 the Alameda County Superior Court denied Tesla's latest attempt to have the case thrown out, and a bench trial before Judge Peter Borkon opened in Oakland on 21 September 2026.
Response: Tesla denies wrongdoing, says it "does not tolerate discrimination" and has fired workers found to have engaged in misconduct; it called the suit politically motivated and accused the agency of using "underground regulations".
A federal jury in San Francisco found that Owen Diaz, a Black contract worker at its Fremont factory in 2015-2016 whom the jury found to be a joint employee of Tesla and the staffing contractor, had been subjected to a racially hostile workplace, including racial slurs such as the n-word and racist graffiti, and awarded him $136.9 million ($6.9 million compensatory, $130 million punitive). The judge later cut the award to $15 million; Diaz chose a retrial, which ended in a $3.2 million verdict in April 2023, and the parties settled in March 2024.
Response: Tesla's vice president of people, Valerie Capers Workman, wrote that "these facts don't justify the verdict" while acknowledging "in 2015 and 2016 we were not perfect. We're still not perfect".