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Two years ago, as far right thugs in Britain launched a series of attacks on hotels housing asylum seekers, Elon Musk took to X to gleefully predict that the U.K. was on the verge of civil war, and urged the English to forcefully oppose immigration. Last year, in a speech live-streamed to a huge fascist rally in the center of London, Musk told his audience that “violence was coming” to England and “you either fight back or you die.”

This past week, as Musk prepared for an initial public offering (IPO) of SpaceX that would, on paper, end up making him the world’s first trillionaire, the tycoon openly sided with the masked arsonists terrorizing non-white asylum seekers and refugees in the northern Irish city of Belfast. Musk has posted and reposted statements about “murderous migrants,” U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer “hating white people,” and how “millions must go,” referring to fascist demands to “remigrate” non-white peoples out of Europe.

It’s impossible to overstate the irresponsibility and dangerousness of Musk’s actions at a moment when Belfast, which was riven by Protestant-Catholic hostility and anticolonial violence for generations, is witnessing a fresh bout of communal rage, this time directed against non-white immigrants. In the last few days, dozens of people, including children, have been burned out of their homes by roving anti-immigrant hoodlums, who were marshalled to sites of “protest” by the U.K.’s preeminent fascist leader, Tommy Robinson. Musk shared the list of these sites, some of which appear to be the addresses of immigrants, with his followers.

By midweek, the violence fueled by a network of white supremacist youth groups had become so fierce that the U.K. government belatedly authorized the police to use water cannons in an effort to regain control of city streets. Musk was anything but contrite. He took to X to proclaim that the “very deliberate policy of mass uncontrolled immigration and open borders” was responsible for the mob violence.

As an individual, Elon Musk’s net worth — post-IPO, an astounding $1.2 trillion — is now more than the annual GDPs of all but 20 countries on earth. On paper, he is now on a par with the Swiss GDP. And as a social media presence, his reach is, arguably, second to none. On X........

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