With Elon Musk fully embracing the conservative MAGA ideology and banging the drum for bigoted anti-immigration policies, it’s not that startling to find the man echoing other far-right sentiments like xenophobia and Islamophobia. If there is one lesson to be learned in Musk’s fall from a billionaire entrepreneur to a meddlesome oligarch constantly making a nuisance of himself in the world of politics — whether it be donating hundreds of millions of dollars to Donald Trump’s campaign, using the newly-instated Department of Government Efficiency to disrupt the workflow of federal agencies, or even using his position as the CEO of X to spread misinformation and silence anyone who doesn’t agree with him — it’s that there is such a thing as too much wealth and influence for one man. And that yesterday’s cool tech uncle is tomorrow’s authoritarian bully. One of Musk’s most concerning stunts over the past few months has involved a ridiculous obsession with the U.K.’s political system. Musk has repeatedly spread false claims about “Muslim rape gangs,” threatened the legislative body including Prime Minister Keir Starmer, and asked for the dissolution of Parliament through King Charles’ ceremonial powers. Now if that was all of it, we’d probably just attribute it to another tantrum thrown by the world’s richest man-child, but Musk’s Islamophobia might be of much greater concern that people realize. Is Elon Musk Islamophobic? According to an article by Wired, Musk has tweeted about the alleged Muslim rape gangs in the U.K. more than 200 times, with his posts raking in hundreds of millions of views. These claims came mere months after anti-immigration riots shook the U.K. to its core and damaged the livelihood of many Muslim immigrants, most of them legal residents. It’s the sort of hateful, generalizing rhetoric that has also helped Donald Trump’s rise to power again, only instead of those “nasty, lying Democrats” who brainwash the kids and control the media, the sacrificial lamb seems to be Muslims this time around, and only because Musk is interested to leverage his influence for the right-wing Reform Party in the U.K., just as he did with MAGA. “Starmer was complicit in the RAPE OF BRITAIN when he was head of Crown Prosecution for 6 years,” Elon wrote on X. “Starmer must go and he must face charges for his complicity in the worst mass crime in the history of Britain.” The prime minister had scathing words of his own for Musk, saying that he’s “crossed a line.” Even France’s president Emmanuel Macron has described Musk’s behavior as disconcerting. Per CNN: “If we had been told the owner of the largest social media network would support an international reactionary movement and directly intervene in elections, including Germany, who would have believed it? This is the world we live in and in which we have to conduct diplomacy.” But the problem is that Musk’s influence does not end there. Not only is the man now in control of the biggest social platform in the world, but he’s also the closest advisor to President Trump, and has more money than the GDP of entire countries out there. Recently, the former secretary-general of the Muslim Council of Britain, Zara Mohammed, claimed that British Muslims are afraid of Musk and Trump’s influence. “I think it’s a deeply challenging time. Many Muslims in particular are kind of staying away from X and certain social media platforms. It’s so hostile. It’s so disgusting I would say, the kind of vitriol we’re seeing. Using child grooming to, again, politicise and actually make one community look really barbaric – so I think we’re really worried.” Musk’s support for Tommy Robinson, a far-right anti-Islam ringleader in the U.K., is another troubling development for the head of the Department of Government Efficiency. Musk had previously pledged to fund Robinson’s fight. “We’re worried about the influence of Musk. We’re worried about the kind of normalisation of figures on the far-right, particularly the Tommy Robinsons and even Nigel Farage, which just always veer away from the illegal, you know, just on the borderline,” Mohammed adds. Musk’s Islamophobic behavior is not necessarily limited to U.K. politics. Back in December 2022, the SpaceX CEO had posted a tweet showing the Islamic symbol of a crescent and a star next to emblems like the LGBTQ+ flag and the insignia of Communism and Black Lives Matter, writing that he is not “brainwashed.” I’m not brainwashed!! pic.twitter.com/4kx61uu4yy— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) December 28, 2022 You can guess the outrage on social media. I mean, just imagine if someone had used the Star of David in that context. Think of the outcry that would’ve caused then. But while anti-Semitism is to be fought against in every instance, other secretarianist behavior like Islamophobia hardly merits the same level of attention, especially if it comes from folks like Elon Musk, sitting atop his throne and not caring a whit if millions of people suffer as a direct consequence of his false, hateful rhetoric.