Elon Musk’s model mom is the latest to call out the New York Times on its explosive story suggesting the world’s richest man was “detached from apartheid’s atrocities” while still a young boy in South Africa.
Maye Musk, 74, on Thursday replied directly to the Times’ tweet pushing its widely derided “hit piece,” which it promoted by also saying the Tesla founder grew up “surrounded by anti-Black propaganda.”
“In South Africa, if you publicly opposed apartheid, you went to jail,” Maye Musk pointed out to The Gray Lady, comparing it to how today in Russia “if you publicly oppose the war, you go to jail.”
“@nytimes are you going to blame children for decisions made by governments?” asked the mom, who joined her son as his guest at the Met Gala.
She was just the latest critic of the article by Times correspondents John Eligon and Lynsey Chutel titled, “Elon Musk Left a South Africa That Was Rife With Misinformation and White Privilege.”
It quoted experts as saying that such an upbringing may have affected his views on racism and could offer a glimpse into how he will run Twitter should he take over.
“This is the kind of punishment the corporate media doles out to anyone whom they perceive as their enemy and, especially, who opposes the censorship regime on which they rely,” Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist tweeted.
“Reporting on Musk is obviously valid: necessary,” he wrote. “This isn’t reporting. It’s deceit and punishment.”