Radicalized by the right: Elon Musk puts his conspiratorial thinking on display for the world to see

Elon Musk is showing the world how radicalized he has become.

Elon Musk is showing the world how radicalized he has become. The billionaire, one of the most consequential figures to walk the Earth, spent another weekend swimming in the right-wing fever swamps of X — a bad habit that was apparent when his interview with Don Lemon was released Monday morning. In the contentious interview, Musk equated moderating dangerous and appalling hate speech to “censorship,” bashed the press for legitimate reporting, assailed DEI programs without supporting evidence, skewered advertisers who fled the X platform last year and yet again gave credence to the racist Great Replacement theory, among other things. To those not fluent in the intricacies of right-wing media, some of what Musk said may have sounded bizarre or even foreign. But in the right-wing fever swamps, where Musk is now deeply entrenched, these are the issues that animate the masses. Musk’s comments on the premiere episode of Lemon’s new online show added to an unhinged 72-hour posting spree on X, in which the erratic businessman raged against the “woke mind virus” and said its “goal” is “the destruction of America,” agreed with a user who wrote “Fake News is the Enemy of the People,” said the press is “basically the [Joe] Biden cheering squad,” accused the news media of “lying” about Donald Trump’s “blood bath” comments, called NPR a “nice version of Pravda,” alleged Google “manipulate[s] their search results with left wing bias,” said the January 6 insurrection was “not a ‘bloodbath’ by any definition,” and argued that if there is not a “red wave” in November, “America is doomed.” At this juncture, calling Musk a right-wing shitposter is no longer provocative. It’s simply accurate. And his ugly behavior is even more troubling because of the fact that Musk is enormously influential, casting a large shadow across multiple industries and doing billions of dollars’ worth of national security business with the US government.