During a highly anticipated interview with Don Lemon, Elon Musk stated that present-day society blames “a lot of things” on racism.
The hour-long interview included several wide-ranging questions on Musk’s automotive company, Tesla, the social media platform now called X under Musk’s ownership, and the billionaire’s thoughts on DEI initiatives, hate speech, and race.
When it comes to racism, “we need to move on” and “treat people like people,” Musk told Lemon.
“If we keep talking about [racism] nonstop it will never go away. If we keep making it the central thing, it will never go away,” Musk said. “We want to get away from making everything a race or a gender or whatever issue and just treat people like individuals.”
The interview went viral on X and other social media platforms, prompting debate online.
“I think we need to move on. Typical!!” one X user wrote.
“Says the rich White person who doesn’t experience racism. It is easy to say move on from something if it doesn’t impact you or you have no empathy for someone who is impacted,” wrote a Facebook user. “People will stop talking about racism when we no longer are subjected to it.”
Even if Musk doesn’t realize it, the viewpoints he shared are a clear example of racial colorblindness, which is an approach that proposes that ignoring racial and ethnic differences and treating individuals as equally as possible is the best way to end discrimination. Yet, this belief can make space for people to reject negative racial experiences when they happen and even serve as a tool for people to disengage from conversations about race entirely.
Adding to his stance on race, Musk said that every person at some point in history, including white people, “has been a slave…it’s just a question of when, was it more recent or less recent?”
Musk has never shied away from posting his thoughts or promoting other controversial posts on subjects like DEI and race. In the past, he has posted that “DEI must DIE” and complained that diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts are discriminatory.
He endorsed a tweet a few months ago suggesting that HBCU students have lower IQs, which should bar them from becoming pilots.
In his interview with Lemon, he suggested that vocational standards are being lowered in different industries to make room for minorities, including in the medical field, sparking a firestorm online and drawing backlash from several civil rights groups.
“I think we should treat people according to their skills and their integrity and that’s it,” Musk told Lemon.
Musk also denied claims that hate speech has risen on the platform, despite the studies Lemon mentioned that reveal otherwise.
As for moderating hate speech on X, Musk said that the platform has a “responsibility to adhere to the law and be transparent about when things are shown and why they’re shown,” but called moderation a “propaganda word” for censorship.
Lemon also took time to ask for Musk’s thoughts on the federal EEOC lawsuit against Tesla alleging widespread racial harassment against Black employees at the Tesla plant in Fremont, California. Musk said, “I don’t believe that is true” and that he “never saw” any racist behavior while he was at the facility.
“If there’s over 20,000 people in one building, is everyone going to behave perfectly? No. Did I see any situations that I thought were improper? I did not,” Musk said.
“The Don Lemon Show” was created to be part of the X’s “exclusive media partnerships” and was supposed to air a few times a week on the platform. However, Lemon said Musk ended their partnership just hours after their interview, stating that Musk was “upset” about how their discussion unfolded.
