Elon Musk’s descent into racist absurdity
“Nolan is racist towards White people, especially Greeks.”
Elon Musk, gripped by race-fueled hysteria, is divining conspiratorial intent in the most mundane news items. According to the richest man in the world, Hollywood casting decisions are part of a larger scheme to “destroy Western Civilization” and enact “deliberate White erasure.”
Since May 10, the centibillionaire owner of Tesla and SpaceX has authored 45 posts on his social media platform protesting the casting of Academy Award-winning actor Lupita Nyong’o as Helen of Troy in director Christopher Nolan’s upcoming film adaptation of the Odyssey. Because Nyong’o is a Black woman, Musk has argued that her presence in the movie is tantamount to defacing “European culture.”
“Casting a Black woman to play a White woman in a foundational work of European literature is no more right than casting a White man to play Shaka Zulu!” he wrote in a post to his 240 million followers on X. Unlike Shaka Zulu, Helen was not a real person. She is instead a mythological figure, fashioned as the daughter of Zeus, the supreme deity in the ancient Greek pantheon.
Musk has also accused Nolan of “desecrating Homer” by choosing a Black actress to play Helen. “It really saddens me thinking about Homer turning in his grave seeing how his masterpiece is being raped at the altar of equity,” read one post cosigned by Musk. Whether Homer was a real person remains an unanswered question. There is no proof Homer existed or that the Odyssey and Iliad were created by one man.
The attempt by Musk to portray Helen as an inherently white character within a neatly defined white history is wholly divorced from historical context. Whiteness as a uniform racial characteristic is a relatively recent social invention, with disparate scholars tracing its origins to either Medieval France, 17th-century England, or 18th-century North America. “The ancient Greeks and Romans did not consider human biology or skin color the source of racial identity, although the belief that human variation was determined by the environment or climate persisted throughout antiquity,” Denise Eileen McCoskey, a classics professor at Miami University, wrote in a 2020 article.
In other words, the culture that gave birth to the mythological Helen would not recognize Musk’s modern conception of race, in which he — a South African-born Anglo — deems ancient Balkan peoples to be members of his own race.
‘White solidarity is the only way to survive’
Musk’s fury over the casting of a Black actress is part of his broader embrace of white nationalist dogma. “Whites are a rapidly dying minority,” he warned in a January post. That same month, he endorsed a post that read, “If white men become a minority, we will be slaughtered… White solidarity is the only way to survive.”
More recently, Musk has argued that white men face “unrelenting hate” and that North America should be considered an indigenous homeland for white people. “It certainly makes no sense that everyone except Europeans can have a homeland,” he wrote in March. He then concluded that “250 years sounds like plenty [of time]” for white Americans to be classified as indigenous.
While insisting that white people are the victims of insidious and widespread racism, Musk has sought to paint other racial demographics as violent perpetrators. He concurred with a post on Sunday claiming that “there are entire races of people” willing to engage in group rape.
Musk’s commentary on race has not only turned more febrile but become far more prolific. A Washington Post analysis published in April found that he had shared some 850 posts referencing race over the prior seven-month span, a substantial rise compared to his output in 2023, 2024, and early-to-mid 2025.
This hyperfixation appears to be leading Musk to increasingly radical pronouncements. For example, he concluded last month that “blacks killing whites should be” defined as “left wing” political violence. In the months that preceded Musk’s claim, he authored or amplified scores of posts focused solely on Black people who have committed or been accused of crimes.
‘Nolan is racist towards White people’
As recently as 2024, Musk described Nolan as “awesome” and spoke glowingly about the director’s 2023 hit, Oppenheimer.
Those feelings appeared to shift early this year, with the circulation of confirmed and unconfirmed reports about the cast that Nolan had assembled for the Odyssey, which is due out in July. In January, Musk wrote that the director had “lost his integrity” by employing a Black actress rather than a Greek woman. He escalated that claim last week by agreeing with an X user who wrote, “Nolan is racist towards White people, especially Greeks.”
Nyong’o playing Helen of Troy remained top of mind for Musk even as he flew aboard Air Force One early Wednesday morning as part of Donald Trump’s delegation to China. He shared a post accusing Nolan of dancing on “Homer’s grave” less than 10 minutes after confirming he was flying to China with the president.
Meanwhile, another of Musk’s claims about Nolan rests on a false premise. He has repeatedly said that Nolan cast Nyong’o only to ensure that the Odyssey would pass a diversity requirement — “DEI lies,” as he put it — that the Academy Awards began mandating in 2024. However, for a production to qualify for the Best Picture award, it can meet the diversity requirements by employing members of historically underrepresented groups on-screen or in production. According to Variety, that standard would qualify every Best Picture winner in the Academy’s history:
Every best picture winner in the Academy’s 98-year history — from the silent-era film “Wings” in 1929 through the most recent political action epic “One Battle After Another” this past March — clears the Academy’s Representation and Inclusion Standards. That also includes “Oppenheimer,” the film directed by Christopher Nolan, with whom Elon Musk had no problem until this past week. And Nolan’s upcoming adaptation of Homer’s “The Odyssey,” whenever the Academy gets a look at it, would also clear the inclusion standards, and it’s not because Lupita Nyong’o was cast as Helen of Troy.
Musk has also taken issue with rumors that Elliot Page, a transgender actor, might play the role of Achilles, calling the potential casting “One of the dumbest and twisted things I’ve ever heard.” But Universal Pictures has yet to confirm Page’s role in the film or confirm who will portray Achilles. One of Musk’s children — Vivian, from whom he is estranged — is also trans, a subject that the billionaire suddenly alluded to in the midst of his posting spree about the Odyssey. “The woke mind virus killed my son,” Musk wrote on Sunday.
Doesn’t this asshole have a car company to wreck or a government contract to steal billions of taxpayer dollars on needless technology?
Ketamine sure is one hell of a drug.