To Americans, and probably to many others as well, Elon Musk's attitude and actions are something of a mystery. They ask why a billionaire acts the way he does. Why does he have such a strange sense of humor? “Why does he say that?” they ask, irritated.
Many of the Tesla CEO's comments seem deliberately intended to be simply stupid, thus demonstrating how much he enjoys stupidity. The day before the Twitter takeover was completed, he changed his name on his Twitter profile to “Chief Twit,” but the title was later changed to “Twitter Complaint Hotline Operator” after receiving an influx of complaints. And he loves digging into the norms of polite society, or “stirring the pot” as we call it in South Africa. In November 2021, he tweeted that “at least 50% of my tweets were made on a porcelain throne,” adding, “It gives me solace.” He even challenged Mark Zuckerberg cage fight.
Mr. Musk's humor is South African, with an outspoken attitude common among women, and offending others is not a major concern.
People ask, “How could such a famous person do something so ridiculous?” Doesn't he care that people misunderstand him and encourage others to ignore him and slander him? ” I have heard people try to explain this in all sorts of ways: because he is ignorant about humans Because of his autismthat he is fundamentally adolescent and loves to shock people.
I have never had such a reaction. The reason is simple. That's what people are saying. myself For years. I think, like me, he just enjoys what he does so much that he just doesn't care that people think he's ridiculous.
Now, I don't claim to be a clone of Elon Musk, nor do I think I know him well enough to write this from a position of knowledge. I've never interviewed him – not that he's allowed it – and I've never met him, but he lives less than 32 miles from me in Austin, Texas. I certainly don't have his genius, nor am I a millionaire or remotely wealthy. I'm a retired academic currently writing a novel about the late Roman Empire.
His words and the way he speaks are very familiar and never surprise me. My intuition guides me to understand its meaning. If we have any similarities, it comes from our origins. We both grew up in South Africa during apartheid.
Why is this important? Because culture matters. Culture matters because even if it doesn't change your innate talents or tendencies, it shapes what you accept as normal behavior and how you perceive humor. This cultural influence is particularly evident in South Africa, whose history and power relations differ greatly from other countries colonized by Europeans.
South Africa's white culture is an amalgamation of two major waves of settlers. The first wave consisted of Dutch settlers in the late 17th century. The second wave in the early 19th century included British veterans of the Napoleonic Wars and their families. These groups developed a cultural mold characterized by the sturdiness of Dutch country explorers and the resilience of battle-weary British soldiers. Later, immigrants joined the mix, but the basic idea remained.
White settlers did not believe they could fully replace the indigenous peoples, which included powerful and warlike tribes such as the Xhosa, Sotho, Ndebele, and Zulus. As a result, expectations of ultimate victory were by no means common. Instead, people have learned to accept contradictions and live with the present. Life was precarious and dangerous, and only the strongest people survived. This environment left little room for softer values and fostered a culture where gallows humor thrived amid constant challenges.
Musk is adamant about the idea of settling Mars because, like many white South Africans, he believes it is currently too unstable to trust.
Now think about what rules were imposed on Afrikaners during apartheid. Few people who don't know this country understand how bureaucratic it was. Afrikaners admired values that we would loosely classify as “Germanic” and imposed them on the nation. Everyone carried an identification card that summed up your entire life and designated your assigned race. Black people also carried something called a “pass” that indicated where they were allowed to be. Television was excluded from this country until long after other countries had it. The ruling nationalists naturally viewed television as a danger to social order. I showed too much.
In this situation, there are only two legal options. You can either accept everything as a natural order of things and submit to it, or you can rebel against what is imposed on you. Rebellion did not necessarily mean joining the African National Congress, but it did mean deepening disdain for bureaucracy and questioning widely accepted ideas.
Humor and ridicule became important coping mechanisms. A popular comedy radio show featured a recurring character as an unintelligent Afrikaner police officer who asked in broken English, “Do you have a license?” It was ridiculous, but it resonated with everyone because it reflected reality. We were laughing at ourselves, acknowledging that as “white people” we were complicit in maintaining a controlled society. We recognized the emptiness of the system and made silly, self-deprecating humor our primary means of expression.
Doesn't this sound like Elon Musk? Who else will resist? bureaucracy or give the proverbial finger To the officials trying to decide the terms? His dedication to free speech is so deep that he spent billions of dollars to buy Twitter in order to protect it.
I believe that this attitude stems from the strict restrictions on expression in South Africa. Many of us who grew up in such environments have similar reactions. I get deeply frustrated whenever I encounter bureaucratic nonsense and hate being told what to do.
In June 2023, Musk posted a meme mocking pregnant women asking if their child is a boy or a girl. The doctor replies:Let the kindergarten teacher decide”, echoing the South African government's practice of determining whether someone is white or non-white. After 300 years of vigorous miscegenation, many of those considered “white” had little, if any, role to play. My own family embodies this.
We realized the lies behind the narratives we were fed, from so-called equality in the Bantustans to the pretext of respecting equality under state power. When Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez complained about problems with her Twitter account after clashing with Musk, he called it that.blatant abuse of power” by the new owners of the platform. The comment felt like a typical South African joke. We understand the abuse of power, and laughter became a way to deal with it.
Mr. Musk's humor is South African, with an outspoken attitude common among women, and offending others is not a major concern. People are expected to be tough enough to deal with it, and there's a special satisfaction in cutting through the pretense. When Taylor Swift supported Kamala Harris and called herself a childless cat lady; Posted by mask: “Okay, Taylor…you win…I'll give you a baby and protect your cats with my life.” People who want to prove their enlightened, feminist views say that I felt it was vulgar and tasteless. All the South Africans I know found this funny.
As a former “white” South African, I would ask why Mr. Musk switched from his traditional liberal stance to supporting MAGA. What took him so long? I don't think he was interested enough to get involved in politics at first. But he lost one of my sons Everything has changed in line with the latest fashionable ideology. That's all you need.
