Elon Musk, the world’s richest man, thoroughly embarrassed himself last week during a mostly amicable interview with Zanny Minton Beddoes, editor-in-chief of the self-described “radical centrist” British newsmagazine The Economist. He displayed puddle-deep knowledge on subjects in which he claims expertise, a callous disregard to human suffering and a hair-trigger temper at being calmly challenged with demonstrable facts.

His performance and subsequent menacing online tantrum ought to present the media, the government, investors, index funds and others with a simple yes-or-no question that requires a yes-or-no answer: Should we treat as fine and normal that the fate of huge chunks of the economy and millions of Americans’ 401(k)s are in the hands of this unstable, thin-skinned, thuggish race-baiting conspiracy theorist? 

Musk’s most ignominious moments during the 90-minute interview include saying “zero” people died as a result of the cuts to foreign aid implemented by the Department of Government Efficiency, known as DOGE, the untransparent, unaccountable, legally questionable quasi-agency he briefly ran at the beginning of President Donald Trump’s second term. 

Beddoes said she agreed with Musk’s view that U.S. government spending had “a lot of waste” and held “a lot of sympathy” for the Trump administration’s “change of the aid regime.” But she nonetheless took issue with “the pace and the suddenness” of DOGE’s cuts that “almost certainly have caused unnecessary suffering and deaths.”

Musk’s response was inherently contradictory: There were no deaths as a result of food and medical aid for millions being cut off overnight, he claimed, but other nongovernmental agencies could have stepped in to immediately fill the gaps left by DOGE’s cuts to prevent those deaths. Specifically, Musk cited Jeff Bezos’ ex-wife MacKenzie Scott’s foundation and Bill Gates’ foundation as two philanthropic entities that “are capable of acting very quickly. And if they didn’t, I would say they’re equally responsible.”

Which is it, Elon? Did people die after DOGE eviscerated U.S. foreign aid or not? 

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It should be noted that Musk has repeatedly slammed Scott’s charitable giving, saying in a since-deleted March 2024 post, “Super rich ex-wives who hate their former spouse’ should be listed among ‘Reasons that Western Civilization died,’” and last month agreed with an X post that said Scott’s donations of $26 billion and counting were spent on “making the world a worse place.”

Musk, as is his wont, also claimed that the U.K. is inevitably headed for a civil war, telling a skeptical Beddoes (who lives in London) that she lives a “cloistered existence” — before admitting that he hadn’t been in the country in years.

When Beddoes asked how his unprofitable businesses are going to be making money in the future, Musk predicted, “Money won’t matter in 2036.” Despite Beddoes repeatedly praising Musk and offering points of agreement, he retreated to boasting that “a quarter billion people follow me,” adding that “a lot more people hate you and the media more than you realize.”

Attempting to catch Beddoes in a “gotcha,” Musk said, “There are more people that die in Europe from heat deaths than people that die from gun deaths in America. Why aren’t you writing an article about air conditioning?” Beddoes retorted, “Well, we’ve done several on air conditioning, and we had on our cover last week a whole long piece about —” 

“Pro-air conditioning?” Musk intoned. “Very pro-air conditioning,” Beddoes replied. 

When clips of the interview hit the internet, revealing Musk’s touchiness and inability to grasp basic facts, Beddoes came to his defense, telling CNBC that she’s “not a Musk hater” and in fact thinks he is “an extraordinary individual” who has “probably done more than any other person to build the future.” 

Musk, however, lashed out in his typical fashion: with vile invective and barely concealed calls to violence. He accused Beddoes of being a “traitor to the West” — one of his favorite insults, but not one he takes lightly. Last week, Musk posted in favor of the far-right push to ethnically cleanse nonwhite people from the U.S. and European countries, saying, “Anyone who opposes remigration is a traitor.” Musk also boosted a tweet that appeared to endorse shooting “the traitors” and then “the invaders.” 

Jamelle Bouie put the posts in context in The New York Times: 

As Musk sees it, opponents of remigration are traitors to “the West.” And as “traitors” their proper fate, according to the logic of his posts, is to be killed as punishment for their role in the demographic transformation of majority-white nations and, presumably, as a warning to those who might pollute the national bloodstream by welcoming nonwhites into their lives and into the country.

That the richest man in the world and the biggest donor to the president and ruling party of the United States openly and repeatedly endorses ethnic cleansing and insinuates violent threats ought to be of greater concern to the world’s power brokers. That he is also an overconfident, ignorant buffoon who turns into a shrieking crybaby when even a sympathetic interviewer challenges his lies only makes things worse.

Musk has acted this way for years — from his enthusiastic support of Germany’s Nazi-sympathizing political party to his racist and misogynistic social media posts to the wanton destruction of countless lives at the hands of his possibly illegal rampage through the U.S. government. And after the dust clears, the result remains the same. 

The U.S. government will continue to prop up his unprofitable and/or revenue-cratering businesses with taxpayer dollars, while it slashes life-sustaining aid to its own citizens. Index funds will continue to roll the dice on Tesla and SpaceX — using Americans’ retirement nest eggs to wager on Musk’s business acumen even as the companies’ stocks tumble. And lawmakers, media outlets and journalists who know better will continue to use his social media platform X, despite its Grok chatbot being a notorious generator of nonconsensual sexually explicit images — to say nothing of it being the primary megaphone for its owner’s relentless white-nationalist-adjacent propaganda. 

One of the sadder aspects of American life is how we conflate the massive accumulation of money with the “Great Man theory.” Musk’s Economist interview and subsequent freakout ought to have laid waste to the myth that he’s an irreplaceable, fearless visionary and we should bet humanity’s future on the financial success of his business ventures. It ought to lead to figures like Beddoes condemning his disgraceful behavior, rather than shrugging it off. 

There’s nothing written in stone that says this has to continue, but sadly there’s no reason to expect it will change.

Anthony L. Fisher

Anthony L. Fisher is a senior editor and opinion columnist for MS NOW.