Elon Musk and South Africa

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."^[5] His tone shifted markedly in July 2023, when he posted directly to South African President Cyril Ramaphosa: "They are openly pushing for genocide of white people in South Africa. Why do you say nothing?"^[6][7] By February 2024 he had escalated further, claiming that "the likely future leader of South Africa calls for genocide of the 4 million whites who live there,"^[8] 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.^[9]

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."^[5][10] 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,"^[11] 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,^[12] describing the country's Black Economic Empowerment framework as "Apartheid version 2,"^[13] and calling for international sanctions against South Africa.^[14] 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,"^[15] 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."^[15]

Among the most prominent pieces of visual evidence Musk circulated to support the white genocide 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.^[3] 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" murdered white farmers.^[16][17] A visibly startled Ramaphosa asked Trump directly where the footage was from, saying he had never seen it before.^[18]

Fact-checkers and journalists subsequently established that the crosses were not graves.^[19][20] The footage showed a temporary roadside protest erected in September 2020 in the hamlet of Normandien, KwaZulu-Natal, following the murder of Glen and Vida Rafferty, a white farming couple killed during a robbery at their farmhouse.^[21][22] 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.^[23][24] Brown stated the crosses stood for less than 48 hours. South Africa's Police Minister Senzo Mchunu further clarified that the Rafferty killers had been prosecuted, with two receiving life sentences, and that the crosses "symbolized killings on farms over years, they are not graves."^[25][26] Three perpetrators were tried and convicted for the Rafferty murders.^[27] 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.^[28] Brown keeps them locked in a shed.

The white genocide narrative Musk has repeatedly amplified is widely characterised by scholars, journalists, and fact-checkers as a far-right conspiracy theory.^[29] 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.^[30] 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.^[31]

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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."^[15] He also highlighted that over 600 American companies operate successfully in South Africa in full compliance with local laws.^[32] Musk replied to Monyela on X with a profanity-laced insult, calling him "a fucking racist" and an "asshole."^[33]

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 genocide. It would be dangerous to have Elon Musk own a technological ecosystem in South Africa."^[34]

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.^[35] 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.^[35]

The most prominent and consequential voice to amplify Musk's claims has been U.S. President Donald Trump.^[3] 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.^[36] Trump declared that "people are being killed" and that "their land is being confiscated," stating that a "genocide" was underway.^[37]

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 murders.^[38] 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 murdered near Newcastle, not a burial site.^[3] Ramaphosa, visibly composted, told Trump: "If there was Afrikaner farmer genocide, 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 genocide in South Africa.^[39] 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 genocide claims.^[40]

Secretary of State Marco Rubio similarly echoed the narrative.^[41] He boycotted the G20 foreign ministers' meeting in February 2025, posting that "South Africa is doing very bad things. Expropriating private property."^[42] When asked on CBS's Face the Nation whether there was evidence of a genocide, Rubio stated "I think there's evidence, absolutely, that people have been murdered, that people have been forcibly removed from their properties," a claim fact-checkers noted was unsupported by police statistics.^[43] 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.^[44]

In the media space, Fox News host Tucker Carlson played a significant role in moving the white genocide narrative from fringe internet forums toward mainstream American political discourse.^[45] 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.^[46] Carlson repeatedly aired segments claiming white South African farmers faced racially targeted violence — claims analysts and academics described as "filled with factual errors."^[47] Canadian far-right activist and filmmaker Lauren Southern produced a 2018 documentary titled Farmlands which promoted the idea of an imminent race war and genocide against white South Africans, and was widely described by researchers as agitprop aligned with white nationalist advocacy groups including Suidlanders.^[48] English media personality Katie Hopkins similarly produced content promoting the white genocide claim.^[49]

It is notable that such claims have a longer history within white nationalist and white supremacist movements well before Musk's involvement.^[50] 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 white supremacist, has for decades characterised the situation of white people as amounting to "genocide," 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."^[51]

Scholars who study the white genocide conspiracy theory trace its popularisation to neo-Nazi David Lane's 1988 White Genocide Manifesto,^[52] and the Institute for Security Studies in Pretoria has described the idea of a white genocide in South Africa as "completely false."^[53]

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 genocide," suggesting the hostility toward South Africa may be more closely connected to Pretoria's genocide case against Israel at the International Court of Justice.^[54]

French President Emmanuel Macron praised the South African G20 summit as an overwhelming success for multilateralism, a pointed contrast to the U.S. boycott.^[55] China's President Xi Jinping attended, as did European heads of state.^[56]

Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have both rejected the genocide narrative, with independent analyses characterising it as unfounded and politically weaponized.^[57][58]

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."^[59] Afrikaner cattle farmer Nick Serfontein, speaking to France 24, stated plainly: "I feel safe. I sleep with my doors open here on the farm."^[59]