Reading Elon Musk’s Statement on China

Elon Musk just gave a remote interview with the All-In Podcast during what appeared to be a live show. Hawkish China watchers have kind of lost their minds about it.

I won’t single anyone out, but even some people I follow on twitter are saying shit like, “Elon is delivering the CCP’s talking points,” “Elon is a mouthpiece for Xi Jinping.” That’s bananas.

I have no love for Elon—a very dangerous and not-especially-brilliant person about whom I’ve written critically on several occasions.

But what the commentariat is saying about Elon’s remarks is not f*cking true at all. The militarists are once again doing three things for which I have zero tolerance: de-contexualizing and therefore misrepresenting facts, doing whataboutism, and making casual accusations of subversion without merit.

So here’s the full verbatim text of what Elon said, a link to it, and an explanation of why the hawks care only about pushing vilification of China and American exceptionalism and seemingly nothing else.