First . . . what the heck is going on here? What are Donald Trump and Elon Musk trying to do anyway? What are their goals? What are their motivations? Why this rapid fire flurry of actions of all kinds? Most of this craziness is nothing that I noticed in Trump’s campaign promises or speeches.
Clearly, there is no reason to assume that there is either a single motivation and a single goal in these fast and varied actions, nor is it necessary to even assume that they themselves know why they are doing things. They are both, clearly, very emotional and impulsive and seem over-confident in their decision making capabilities. So it’s probably best not to over think things looking for some hidden ideological motivation here.
Some loosely linked potential evidence. I admit it’s far from completely conclusive, consider it a theory, a hypothesis.
Elon Musk, a possible resurrection of Apartheid ideology, and the Immediate targetting of USAID, whch he labelled a “criminal organization.” Why did he do that?
Elon Musk is a product of the South African Apartheid era. Elon Musk was born in the Republic of South Africa in 1971 during the Apartheid era. During this time, South African society was legally structured in a way where White South Africans had rights and privileges that their Black neighbors did not have. Whites ran the nation, controlled the economy, and owned most of the property. Black Africans had very limited rights or privileges and most pubic places were divided into Black areas and White areas. Of course, the White areas were much nicer. Should you wonder, non-Black, non-White people South Africans such as those of Asian or South Asian descent had an intermediary set of rights and travel privileges, and, just to make things thoroughly icky, rich foreign business people from Japan were often accorded honorary status equal to Whites. As a friend commented, “Ack! Those White South Africans aren’t even consistently racist when there’s money involved, I guess.”
If one grew up White in South Africa during this time, you basically had the choice of deciding your society was unjust and unfair, an action that put you in opposition to many of your friends, neighbors and family, but it did happen, 5 or you can form the opinion that the entire racially stratified, repressive South African Apartheid society where Whites were unabashedly given legal and economic advantage over non-Whites along with access to economic and educational opportunity that Blacks were denied, was in fact a sensible, good, and justified way for things to be. It would be easy to see this society as one where the “civilized” people have assumed their necessary yet rigid patronage over the “uncivilized” people.
Of course, such a belief does show lack of empathy for the Blacks but Musk has said “The fundamental weakness of Western civilization is empathy.'
SNOPES -Yes, Musk said 'The fundamental weakness of Western civilization is empathy.' Here's context
He also occasionally speaks of “saving civilization.” For instance:
In response to a question, Elon Musk said about his $43 billion bid for Twitter: "This is not a way to sort of make money. My strong intuitive sense is that having a public platform that is maximally trusted and broadly inclusive is extremely important... So the future of civilization, but you don't care about the economics at all." 6
And right after he gave his two infamous Nazi salutes Musk said “it is thanks to you that the future of civilization is assured.” 7
I
think that when he says “civilization,” and describes it as something that is endangered, he is referring to “White civilization,” something in other contexts I would describe as Western civilization.
We may be seeing an attempt to re-establish at least part of the White South African ideology taking place in our era and in our democratic nation where most embrace, at least in theory, racial equality and equal opportunity.
See:
And why, when given the opportunity, did Elon Musk make a priority of destroying USAID, arguably one of the most benevolent of all American Federal Governmental Institutions?
Why did he, in a seemingly bizarre turn of phrase, label it “A criminal organization?”
My suspicion is that this action and the strange label “criminal organization” were because USAID was quite active in implementing the American people’s desire to help the majority of South Africans and work to dismantle Apartheid.
See:
ADST - American People’s Foreign Policy: USAID’s Role in Apartheid South Africa
See:
Donald Trump
As for Donald Trump, there is no doubt in my mind that he is a racist who looks down on darker skinned people. I admit, my African-American friends, acquaintances, and teachers noticed it before I did, but it’s there once you see it.
See the following.
(FYI, I wrote a book on Trump. ( See: Scams from the Great Beyond --The Presidential Edition: A Skeptical Look at Our 45th President Using the Tools of a Paranormal Debunker and Historian by Peter Huston ) A couple these essays are from a deleted biographical chapter on the life of Trump. They are footnoted.)
See:
History for Fun, Profit, and Insight Trump's 1970 Racial Bias in Housing Lawsuit.
For recent developments see:
And this month we have: New York Times: Trump Offers South African Farmers Expedited Citizenship By John Eligon Reporting from Johannesburg March 7, 2025
Roy Cohn, Donald Trump’s mentor back in the day
Finally, if you really want to understand Donald Trump’s personal character, you really should familiarize yourself with Roy Cohn, his mentor.
For example see Wikipedia - Johnny Clegg —For reasons of space, I’m skipping music videos from the guy and his band, but you can click here: Scatterlings Of Africa - Johnny Clegg & Juluka As an aside, I just noticed this anti-Apartheid South African musician was the child of Eastern European Jewish immigrants to South Africa. It would be interesting to investigate the role of South African Jews in ending Apartheid and viewing it in connection with Musk’s occasional anti-Semitic statements.
India Today - Elon Musk wants to buy Twitter because it will save civilization, money is no reason, April 15, 2022 Undoubtedly there are many, many other sources. This just happened to be the first I found.
