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I’m incensed by what’s happening in Washington, D.C., but I generally avoid writing too much about it because there are already a million takes on the topic, and I don’t think people need yet another voice on this. I try not to be alarmist.
But since Elon Musk is the co-President of the United States now, his views are more salient than any of us would like them to be.
Having watched Musk, and having studied eugenics pretty extensively in the past, I’ve concluded that Elon Musk is a eugenicist. This is as alarming as any other trend I’m seeing today.
What is eugenics [ [link removed] ]?
Eugenics is a pseudo-scientific movement that tries to increase the frequency of so-called “good” or “favorable” genes and decrease the frequency of so-called “bad” or “unfavorable” genes.
On its face, that doesn’t sound so unreasonable. What makes it bad?
Eugenics uses the cudgel of science to allow people in power to strip agency and personhood from people they see as different or lesser.
The crux of the issue: there is no objective definition of good genes. Someone, usually in a position of power, gets to decide what the “good” genes are. What that often means is that people who aren’t in their group—often defined along racial or ethnic lines—have “bad” genes.
Eugenics has been used to justify all sorts of atrocities. The Nazis not only used it as evidence of Aryan superiority but as justification for the forced sterilization and murder [ [link removed] ] of people with so-called “undesirable” traits—everything from epilepsy to blindness to homosexuality.
Tragically, this wasn’t limited to Nazi Germany. California alone forcibly sterilized 20,000 people [ [link removed] ]—people who were disproportionately Black [ [link removed] ], Mexican-American [ [link removed] ], and Native American [ [link removed] ]—without their consent and in many cases without their knowledge. This happened across the United States [ [link removed] ].
Between the ’30s and the ’70s, “approximately one-third of Puerto Rico’s female population of childbearing age [ [link removed] ] had undergone the [sterilization] operation, the highest rate in the world.”
Because of its indelible connection to the Nazis, the movement largely fell out of favor after World War II.
What makes a eugenicist?
Here’s the Wikipedia definition [ [link removed] ]: “Historically, eugenicists have attempted to alter the frequency of various human phenotypes by inhibiting the fertility of people and groups they considered inferior, or promoting that of those considered superior.”
Elon Musk is, in that textbook sense, a classic eugenicist
Using that definition, a eugenicist has three characteristics:
A desire to alter the frequency of various human phenotypes in order to improve the genetic quality of the human population.
A belief in accomplishing that goal by promoting the genetics of those considered superior.
A belief in accomplishing that goal by inhibiting the genetics of those considered inferior.
Musk demonstrates all three. For a person in his position of power, this is enormously alarming.
1. “A desire to alter the frequency of various human phenotypes”
Back in 2015, Musk said he wasn’t interested [ [link removed] ] in “genetic reprogramming.” Why? “You know, I call it the Hitler Problem. Hitler was all about creating the Übermensch and genetic purity, and it's like—how do you avoid the Hitler Problem? I don't know.”
These days, Musk—salute and all [ [link removed] ]—seems a lot less concerned with the Hitler problem, and his desire to “alter the frequency of various human phenotypes” goes beyond his flippant jokes about Hitler and Nazism [ [link removed] ].
Here’s a Musk quote [ [link removed] ] from Elon Musk: Tesla, SpaceX, and the Quest for a Fantastic Future: “There’s this point that Mike Judge makes in Idiocracy [ [link removed] ], which is like smart people, you know, should at least sustain their numbers. Like, if it’s a negative Darwinian vector, then obviously that’s not a good thing.”
He retweeted a lengthy post about Patrick Collison’s excitement about using tools like CRISPR for literal genetic editing [ [link removed] ]—a total 180 from Musk’s position 10 years prior.
Most directly: he talks about the need to supplement human intelligence with robotics [ [link removed] ].
Does Musk have a desire to alter the frequency of various human phenotypes? Yes—though given advances in technology, this goes far beyond anything that even the early eugenicists could have conceived of.
2. “Promoting the genetics of those considered superior”
This is the clearest of the three. Musk is repeatedly on the record talking about how smart people and rich people [ [link removed] ]—namely, himself [ [link removed] ]—should be having more children.
Here’s a description of why Musk wanted to have children with one of his subordinates [ [link removed] ]: “Shivon Zilis…was persuaded by Musk to consider him as the donor, a proposal that aligned with Musk’s advocacy for procreation among the intellectually inclined. ‘He really wants smart people to have kids, so he encouraged me to,’ Zilis said.”
Given how many children Musk has—more than a baker’s dozen and counting [ [link removed] ] with at least three women and probably more—it’s hard to be a good parent even under normal circumstances, and his circumstances are hardly normal. The subtext is that he doesn’t need to parent; with his genes, the children will be just fine.
Does Musk want to promote the genetics of those he considers superior? I think it’s safe to take Shivon Zilis’ words and Musk’s actions at face value here: yes, he does. This one is an open and shut case.
3. “Inhibiting the genetics of those considered inferior”
The vast majority of Americans agree that racism is bad [ [link removed] ]. I bring this up because even for Musk, coming out publicly in favor of “inhibiting the genetics of those he considers inferior” would be too plainly racist, at least for now.
But the mosaic of information that we have about Musk—statements he’s made, comments he’s endorsed, views he’s espoused—suggest to me two things:
I have little doubt that, if the door were cracked open even slightly on this issue, he’d have no hesitation supporting this.
Even more concerningly, I worry that his views, and the people he surrounds himself with, will shift the Overton window [ [link removed] ] and make these sorts of views dangerously mainstream.
The way that Musk talks about people he sees as inferior paints an incredibly sinister picture.
Dismissiveness of people he sees as unintelligent
Musk is consistent in his use of “retard” and “retarded” [ [link removed] ] as insults. That has a material impact; use of those words triples on Twitter [ [link removed] ] after Musk uses them. More to the point, to quote an op-ed in [ [link removed] ]The Guardian [ [link removed] ], using those words is “an attack on someone’s personhood.”
We can write off comments about IQ tests before posting online [ [link removed] ] as flippant trolling. But his consistent use of that slur [ [link removed] ] speaks to something much deeper—especially in this context, when people with intellectual disabilities were so often the victims of early eugenics. Their personhood is unimportant to him [ [link removed] ].
Musk’s views on race, especially Black people
Speaking of IQ, Musk liked a tweet that claimed [ [link removed] ] Black students at HBCUs [ [link removed] ] have lower IQs. He claimed that prioritizing diversity over safety [ [link removed] ] is the only reason that United Airlines has any Black pilots.
He is consistently skeptical of Black people in positions of power, and Tesla has been sued multiple [ [link removed] ] times [ [link removed] ] for discrimination against Black employees.
One of the first things Musk did in his capacity with DOGE was to shut down USAID [ [link removed] ]—a program that provided food, medical assistance, and humanitarian aid across Africa [ [link removed] ]. USAID saved millions of lives [ [link removed] ].
All of this paints the picture of a man who thinks little of Black people, creates a hostile work environment for them, and cares little for the suffering of Africans.
Race and immigration
There is one exception to that: Musk cares deeply about the plight of Africans when they’re White [ [link removed] ].
At the same time that he’s shutting down USAID, Musk has consistently been up in arms about how White South Africans are being treated [ [link removed] ] despite having much higher levels of wealth and land ownership [ [link removed] ] than Black South Africans, and despite being much less likely to be victims of murder [ [link removed] ] and other violent crime.
The Trump Administration, at the same time that they’re shutting down refugee resettlement just about everywhere [ [link removed] ], is moving full steam ahead on a refugee resettlement program for White South Africans [ [link removed] ].
It’s all hauntingly reminiscent of what happened a century ago [ [link removed] ]: “With the Immigration Act of 1924, eugenicists succeeded in implementing federal restrictions on immigration from ‘undesirable’ countries.”
Musk literally hires employees who publicly promote eugenics
Marko Elez [ [link removed] ]—a DOGE staffer who has explicitly called for eugenics—resigned when tweets espousing those views became public [ [link removed] ]. I wish that were the end of the story.
No, Musk re-hired Elez shortly thereafter [ [link removed] ]. Being a eugenicist is hardly disqualifying in Musk’s federal government; perhaps it’s a prerequisite.
The sum total of everything is frightening
Does Musk want to inhibit the genetics of those he considers inferior?
Well, he hasn’t said so explicitly. But a) he surrounds himself with people who do say so explicitly, b) he shares views with some of the most nefarious early eugenicists, c) he openly mocks people he thinks are dumb and disabled, d) he’s endorsed views that espouse the dangers of Jews [ [link removed] ] and the racial inferiority of Blacks, and e) the actions he’s taking will lead to the deaths of many Black Africans—whose welfare he seems unconcerned with, unlike White Africans.
My conclusion, based on all of this, is an alarming but emphatic yes. I’ll let you draw your own conclusions.
The eugenicists are in power
The irony of Musk’s eugenics is that some of his traits—his battle with depression [ [link removed] ] and his autism [ [link removed] ], for instance—would have been categorized as weak or feeble genes by a different era of eugenicists.
But of course, this gets at the core of eugenics: the people in power get to decide what the good genes are. For Musk, and for all eugenicists, anyone who isn’t like him is inherently inferior.
It’d be easy to write this off as troll behavior. It’s not. There are things that Musk does as a troll, but he approaches all of this with seriousness. Donald Trump, by the way, espouses a lot of these same views [ [link removed] ].
Eugenics was, in an earlier era, a harbinger of much more danger to come for people locked out of power. I hope that Musk’s support for eugenics doesn’t lead to its renewed relevance—and I certainly hope that it’s not the harbinger of something worse.
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