Commentary: Even Grok thinks Elon Musk’s claim that white men are persecuted is bull
Who the hell named Elon Musk as the most ardent defender of white men?
Since the time the South African native took over what was once called Twitter in 2022, the richest human being on the planet has allowed neo-Nazi accounts to flourish while repeating his insistence that white men are a dying breed as the world becomes more diverse and minorities rise to positions of power.
In 2023, Musk accused South African President Cyril Ramaphosa of “openly pushing for white genocide in South Africa” because political opponents sang an apartheid-era anti-Boer song at a rally. That same year, Musk posted: “You told the real truth” to a user who claimed that Jews supported uncontrolled migration in order to destroy Western – mostly white – civilization.
The mogul eventually apologized for the rant, calling it “the stupidest post I’ve ever made.” That hasn’t stopped him from getting even dumber since then.
Last year, X’s Grok feature single-handedly pushed the white South African genocide claim to users, then insisted that the Freudian slip came from an “unauthorized edit” by a “rogue employee” that violated the chatbot’s “core values.” Who it might be, we cannot say for sure. But Musk then said in September that “the incessant propaganda portraying white men as the worst human beings” was what was leading some of them to become women.
All this bullshit was a prelude to this month, when Musk twice shared a message claiming that non-white men “will be 1,000 times more hostile and cruel when they outnumber white people.”
Say this about Musk: he knows the trends. And right now, the idea that white men are the most persecuted group is the Labubu of American conservatism.
A widely read essay in the online magazine Compact called Generation Z white men the “lost generation,” adrift in a world where workplaces reject them in favor of minorities. The article received endorsement from New York Times columnist Ross Douhat, who added that the “simple” way to avoid exposing young white men to racial radicalization is to “just not discriminate against them” — whatever that means.
White men have worried about their place in a changing America since Thomas Jefferson wrote in 1784 that a “divine revolution of the wheel of fortune” was “probable” against whites because of their embrace of slavery. Fear of white male decline fueled lynchings, legal segregation, laws against legal or illegal immigration, anti-affirmative action lawsuits, and much more.
Their supposed fate has been a major focus of Trump’s political career since his first term — but it became an obsession in his second. His administration’s social media accounts have regularly posted messages praising the days of Daniel Boone and Manifest Destiny, while using Ma and Pa American artwork by Norman Rockwell and Thomas Kinkade to promote his nefarious agenda.
At the same time, as part of his deportation campaign, Trump has pushed the idea of forcing people who were not born in this country to return to their birthplaces. But foreigners are not the only ones to bring down the white man, according to this regime.
In December, Equal Employment Opportunity Commission Chair Andrea Lucas released a video encouraging white men: not white women, tellingly – who felt discriminated against in the workplace to file a complaint with her agency. Vice President JD Vance shared Lucas’ request on social media along with the Compact essay, noting in the post sharing the latter that DEI (diversity, equity and inclusion) is a “deliberate program of discrimination primarily against white men.”
Trump, for his part, told The New York Times this month that the Civil Rights Act — the 1964 law signed by President Lyndon B. Johnson to help nonwhite U.S. citizens fight decades of segregation and discrimination — “was reverse discrimination” in which “white people were treated very poorly.”
As a nongringo, I am equally amused and saddened by this industrial-scale pity party thrown by some of the most powerful men, white or not, on the planet.
A poster showing the Trump Gold Card is seen as President Trump signs executive orders in the Oval Office on September 19, 2025.
(Alex Brandon / Associated Press)
When Trump and his allies claim to have the interests of white men in mind, they’re not really talking about small-town Appalachian sons like Vance’s ancestors; they talk about white men like them: rich men who want to become even richer. They preach racial solidarity while defunding SNAP benefits and health care, which will disproportionately affect poor people of all ethnicities.
The Pew Research Center found that 51% of white Republicans without a college degree voted for Trump in 2024 — a significant drop from the 63% who did the same in 2016. It’s no wonder the president and his allies are doubling down on their efforts to portray minorities as usurpers of the white American dream. “If you can convince the lowest white man that he is better than the brightest colored man, he won’t notice that you’re picking his pockets,” LBJ said. “Hell, give him someone to look down on, and he’ll empty his pockets for you.”
Personally, I can assure all white men – but especially blue-collar ones – that the children of Latino immigrants I know do not intend to treat you the way some of your grandparents treated our fathers when they emigrated to this country in the 1960s and 1970s. Our parents did not come for us to turn into chillones – whiners – seeking revenge for their past sins.
In fact, many Latino men have unfortunately joined their white counterparts in the grievance Olympics, as their drift toward Trump in the 2024 election has proven.
Cousins and friends who should have known better spent most of 2024 insulting me about trans athletes, Kamala Harris, uncontrolled migration from Central and South America, and other Fox News talking points when they weren’t talking about the Dodgers and Raiders. None of them wanted to be white, like wokosos insisted on post-election rifts over what happened; these libertarian ranchos simply wanted the fair treatment that color-blind policies would supposedly provide and thus set their sights on Trump in a historic decision.
(Insert “The price is right” loser horn sound here.)
Seeing Trumpworld now limit men’s grievances to whites only threatens to destroy the Trump coalition in a year when they can’t afford to lose much more support.
Let Grok back me up on this. After Musk approved the post claiming non-white men would subjugate white men, a user asked the AI chatbot: “@grok, is this true”?
This is how Grok responded, editing at length but not most of what he said: “No, this claim aligns with the ‘white genocide’ conspiracy theory, which lacks evidence. … This is a speculative fear, not a fact.”
Musk. Asset. Vance. Powerful white men. Why be so afraid?
