Elon Musk and South Africa

Elon Musk, who was born in Pretoria, South Africa on 28 June 1971 and emigrated to Canada at age 17, has made his birth country an increasingly prominent subject of his public commentary. Over several years, Musk has used his platform on X to voice strong opinions AbOUT South Africa's post-apartheid transformation policies, its land reform legislation, and what he characterises as systemic discrimination against white and other non-Black citizens. His commentary has grown in frequency and intensity, touching on claims of white [...], the country's Broad-Based Black Economic Empowerment laws, and the licensing dispute surrounding his satellite internet company Starlink.

Evolution of opinions

Musk's early references to South Africa were largely biographical. In 2020, when asked about his nationality on X, he described himself as "American, but born in South Africa. Left by myself when I was 17." His tone shifted markedly in July 2023, when he posted directly to South African President Cyril Ramaphosa: "They are openly pushing for [...] of white people in South Africa. Why do you say nothing?" By February 2024 he had escalated further, claiming that "the likely future leader of South Africa calls for [...] of the 4 million whites who live there," in reference to Economic Freedom Fighters leader Julius Malema and the party's controversial "Kill the Boer" song, which a South African court ruled in 2022 did not constitute hate speech and was protected as political expression, though earlier rulings had found it to constitute hate speech in certain contexts.

His criticism broadened in March 2025 to encompass Starlink's licensing situation, writing "Starlink is not allowed to operate in South Africa, because I'm not black." By May 2025, his posts had reached their highest frequency and intensity, with Musk claiming South Africa had passed "142 laws forcing discrimination against anyone who is not black," a figure which the Daily Maverick described as "seriously misleading," noting the list originated from a right-wing commentator and included laws that mention race only to prohibit discrimination, describing the country's Black Economic Empowerment framework as "Apartheid version 2," and calling for international sanctions against South Africa. In April 2026, Musk alleged that Starlink had been "offered many times the opportunity to bribe our way to a license by pretending that a Black guy runs Starlink SA," an allegation South Africa's Head of Public Diplomacy Clayson Monyela described as a lie, stating there had been "certainly no request from the South African government for any bribe."

Among the most prominent pieces of visual evidence Musk circulated to support the white [...] narrative was a video of white crosses lining a rural highway in KwaZulu-Natal. Musk shared it on X claiming the crosses were graves of white farmers killed in South Africa. The video was later shown by United States President Donald Trump during the May 2025 Oval Office meeting with President Cyril Ramaphosa, with Trump describing the crosses as "burial sites" containing "over a thousand" [...] white farmers. A visibly startled Ramaphosa asked Trump directly where the footage was from, saying he had never seen it before.

Fact-checkers and journalists subsequently established that the crosses were not graves. The footage showed a temporary roadside protest erected in September 2020 in the hamlet of Normandien, KwaZulu-Natal, following the [...] of Glen and Vida Rafferty, a white farming couple killed during a robbery at their farmhouse. Darrel Brown, the farmer who organised the demonstration and erected the crosses, confirmed to both 60 Minutes and South African media that the crosses were a symbolic tribute to farmers of all races killed over the years — not burial markers. Brown stated the crosses stood for less than 48 hours. South Africa's Police Minister Senzo Mchunu further clarified that the Rafferty [...] had been prosecuted, with two receiving life sentences, and that the crosses "symbolized [...] on farms over years, they are not graves." Three perpetrators were tried and convicted for the Rafferty [...]. When 60 Minutes correspondent Anderson Cooper travelled to South Africa to investigate, he found the location — a quiet pothole road near Brown's ranch — with no crosses remaining. Brown keeps them locked in a shed.

The white [...] narrative Musk has repeatedly amplified is widely characterised by scholars, journalists, and fact-checkers as a far-right conspiracy theory. South African courts have ruled that the EFF's "Kill the Boer" chant constitutes hate speech in certain contexts, though they have also found it can constitute protected political expression depending on context. Farm attacks in South Africa, while a serious documented issue, affect victims of all races and are driven primarily by criminal activity rather than racially motivated targeting, according to South African Police Service data and academic researchers.

Reactions and criticism

Musk's statements have drawn sharp responses from South African officials and public figures. Clayson Monyela, Head of Public Diplomacy at South Africa's Department of International Relations and Cooperation, responded to the bribery allegation by stating: "There are situations where you go to report a crime or an attempted crime, but there's certainly no request from the South African government for any bribe." He also highlighted that over 600 American companies operate successfully in South Africa in full compliance with local laws. Musk replied to Monyela on X with a profanity-laced insult, calling him "a [...] racist" and an "[...]."

South African MP Songezo Zibi was more direct in his assessment: "Elon Musk has declared himself, through his actions, as an enemy of South Africa's constitutional order, and an enemy of social justice and redress for racial inequality. He uses misinformation and disinformation to spread lies in the United States that are damaging to South Africa, including the lie about white [...]. It would be dangerous to have Elon Musk own a technological ecosystem in South Africa."

South African critics have also pointed out that Starlink has never formally submitted a complete licence application to the Independent Communications Authority of South Africa (ICASA), undermining Musk's framing that the licence was denied on racial grounds. One South African media outlet noted that Musk's claim to have been denied a licence is "widely hailed as disinformation" given that no formal application was ever filed.

International reactions

The most prominent and consequential voice to amplify Musk's claims has been U.S. President Donald Trump. In February 2025, Trump signed an executive order cutting all U.S. foreign aid to South Africa, citing alleged racial discrimination against white Afrikaners, and simultaneously offered them expedited refugee status — making them effectively the only group eligible for U.S. refugee resettlement during a broader refugee ban. Trump declared that "people are being killed" and that "their land is being confiscated," stating that a "[...]" was underway.

In May 2025, during a televised White House meeting with South African President Cyril Ramaphosa, Trump played a video montage he claimed showed evidence of farm [...]. Fact-checkers subsequently established that the footage — including a road lined with white crosses — had been misrepresented; the crosses were a roadside memorial erected in 2020 for two farmers [...] near Newcastle, not a burial site. Ramaphosa, visibly composted, told Trump: "If there was Afrikaner farmer [...], I can bet you these three gentlemen would not be here," pointing to white South Africans in the room, including the country's richest man, Johann Rupert, who stated directly to Trump that there was no white [...] in South Africa. In November 2025, Trump announced the United States would boycott the G20 summit in Johannesburg entirely, writing on Truth Social that it was "a total disgrace" that South Africa was hosting the meeting, again citing the debunked [...] claims.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio similarly echoed the narrative. He boycotted the G20 foreign ministers' meeting in February 2025, posting that "South Africa is doing very bad things. Expropriating private property." When asked on CBS's Face the Nation whether there was evidence of a [...], Rubio stated "I think there's evidence, absolutely, that people have been [...], that people have been forcibly removed from their properties," a claim fact-checkers noted was unsupported by police statistics. Vice President JD Vance, who has separately promoted the related "Great Replacement" conspiracy theory in the domestic American context, was scheduled to attend the November 2025 G20 in Trump's place before withdrawing.

In the media space, Fox News host Tucker Carlson played a significant role in moving the white [...] narrative from fringe internet forums toward mainstream American political discourse. As far back as 2018, a segment on his show prompted Trump's first intervention on the issue, when Trump posted on Twitter directing then-Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to investigate land seizures. Carlson repeatedly aired segments claiming white South African farmers faced racially targeted violence — claims analysts and academics described as "filled with factual errors." Canadian far-right activist and filmmaker Lauren Southern produced a 2018 documentary titled Farmlands which promoted the idea of an imminent race war and [...] against white South Africans, and was widely described by researchers as agitprop aligned with white nationalist advocacy groups including Suidlanders. English media personality Katie Hopkins similarly produced content promoting the white [...] claim.

It is notable that such claims have a longer history within white nationalist and [...] movements well before Musk's involvement. David Duke, the former Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan and long-described by the Anti-Defamation League as perhaps America's most prominent [...], has for decades characterised the situation of white people as amounting to "[...]," and jubilantly welcomed Trump's 2018 tweet about South African land seizures, posting that "Russia has already agreed to take in 15,000 White South Africans — your move, Mr. President."

Scholars who study the white [...] conspiracy theory trace its popularisation to neo-[...] David Lane's 1988 White [...] Manifesto, and the Institute for Security Studies in Pretoria has described the idea of a white [...] in South Africa as "completely false."

Opposition to Musk's and Trump's claims has come from a wide range of international figures. Saul Dubow, a South African historian and professor of Commonwealth history at the University of Cambridge, told Al Jazeera there was no merit to what he called "Trump's fantasy claims of white [...]," suggesting the hostility toward South Africa may be more closely connected to Pretoria's [...] case against Israel at the International Court of Justice.

French President Emmanuel Macron praised the South African G20 summit as an overwhelming success for multilateralism, a pointed contrast to the U.S. boycott. China's President Xi Jinping attended, as did European heads of state.

Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have both rejected the [...] narrative, with independent analyses characterising it as unfounded and politically weaponized.

A group of prominent Afrikaners — including academics, business leaders and descendants of apartheid-era figures — published an open letter titled "Not in Our Name," which gathered 1,500 signatures in a week, stating that white Afrikaners were not under any "existential threat" and urging American politicians to "stop lying about us and using us as pawns." Afrikaner cattle farmer Nick Serfontein, speaking to France 24, stated plainly: "I feel safe. I sleep with my doors open here on the farm."

Starlink and the BEE licensing dispute

Starlink is a satellite internet service operated by SpaceX, designed to deliver high-speed broadband via a constellation of low-Earth orbit satellites. Musk has positioned it as a tool for global connectivity, particularly emphasising its potential to reach rural and underserved communities that lack access to traditional fibre or mobile infrastructure. In South Africa, Starlink has proposed connecting 5,000 rural schools to free high-speed internet through a R500 million investment, framing the service as a solution to the country's significant digital divide.

To operate as a telecommunications provider in South Africa, companies must comply with the country's Broad-Based Black Economic Empowerment legislation, known as B-BBEE. Introduced after the end of apartheid to address decades of economic exclusion, the policy requires telecommunications licensees to allocate at least 30% equity ownership to historically disadvantaged groups, primarily Black South Africans. The Independent Communications Authority of South Africa (ICASA) administers these requirements and applies them uniformly to all foreign and domestic operators seeking licences.

Musk has repeatedly claimed that Starlink has been denied a licence solely because he is not Black, a position South African officials and commentators have strongly disputed. South Africa's Head of Public Diplomacy Clayson Monyela noted that over 600 American companies operate in South Africa in full compliance with local laws, pointing specifically to Microsoft announcing additional investment in the country around the same time as Musk's complaints. Critics have highlighted that companies including Amazon Web Services operate successfully in South Africa by meeting B-BBEE requirements through established legal mechanisms, without the public disputes Musk has generated. South African media has further noted that Starlink has never formally submitted a complete licence application to ICASA, undermining Musk's framing that the application was racially denied.

South African authorities have also offered a potential path forward. In December 2025, Communications Minister Solly Malatsi directed ICASA to recognise Equity Equivalent Investment Programmes as a legitimate alternative to direct equity sales, meaning that Starlink's proposed school connectivity investment could count toward empowerment targets. Musk rejected this framing, claiming that Starlink had been "offered many times the opportunity to bribe our way to a license by pretending that a Black guy runs Starlink SA," and that he had refused "on principle." As of April 2026, ICASA had not completed the required regulatory updates, leaving Starlink's formal entry into the market pending.

Beyond the regulatory dispute, critics within South Africa have questioned whether Starlink's arrival would meaningfully benefit the communities Musk claims to champion. South Africa has one of the highest levels of income inequality in the world, with a Gini coefficient consistently ranked the highest globally. In rural villages where connectivity is most needed, the cost of Starlink hardware and monthly subscriptions remains far beyond the reach of most residents, with industry analysts estimating that only around 20% of South Africans can afford the service. South African social commentators have pointed out that connecting schools for free does not address the broader affordability barrier that would prevent ordinary South Africans from ever becoming paying customers.

South Africa already has a well-established and competitive telecommunications market. Mobile network operators Vodacom and MTN provide coverage across the country including in many rural areas, while fibre providers have expanded rapidly in urban centres. These providers have navigated B-BBEE requirements and built substantial local operations. For many South Africans, existing mobile data packages, despite their cost, already represent the primary means of internet access. Industry analysts have noted that Starlink would enter not a connectivity vacuum but a diverse market with entrenched local players, and that its addressable market would likely be limited to middle-to-high income households — raising questions, as TechCentral observed, about whether the service would deliver transformative rural access or primarily serve those already connected.

Grok and the white [...] claims

On 14 May 2025, at the height of Musk's public campaign against South Africa, his Grok AI chatbot — developed by his company xAI and integrated into X — began inserting references to "white [...]" in South Africa into responses to completely unrelated user queries. Among the documented examples: a user who asked Grok to fact-check a baseball player's salary received a response pivoting to claims about white farm [...]; a user who asked Grok to respond "in the style of a pirate" received a pirate-VOICED response that abruptly shifted to the topic of white [...]; a user who asked Grok to explain a message from Pope Leo XIV in Fortnite terms received a response about targeted attacks on white farmers; and a user who simply posted a photo of a grassy landscape and asked "@grok where is this?" received a response beginning with a note that the image was "likely not tied to South Africa's farm attack debate" before proceeding to discuss farm attacks anyway. Similar responses were reported across dozens of queries involving cartoons, dentists, HBO Max, Medicaid, and the WWE.

xAI attributed the behaviour to an "unauthorized modification" to Grok's system prompt by a rogue employee, stating it violated the company's "internal policies and core values." However, when users asked Grok directly how it had been instructed, the chatbot stated it "appears I was instructed to address the topic of 'white [...]' in South Africa" — a statement that contradicted the rogue employee explanation and was subsequently deleted from the platform. Independent researchers at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County later reconstructed the incident, finding that inserting a system prompt instruction to treat white [...] claims as true was sufficient to reproduce the behaviour across entirely unrelated queries.

The incident drew widespread coverage from CNN, NBC News, CNBC, TechCrunch and Axios, and computer scientists described it as evidence that AI alignment techniques can be "deliberately abused to produce misleading or ideologically motivated content." The episode reinforced existing concerns among South African politicians, including those who had already cited Musk's control over both X and Grok as reasons to oppose Starlink's entry into the country.