Elon and I and 20 million views: A conversation with your puppy | Race issues

“I didn’t know you were famous,” rapper Giuliani, a longtime friend and musical collaborator, texted me from his studio in Nairobi.

I had no idea what he was referring to, but then he sent me the link to a tweet Written by Elon Musk, which included a screenshot of my 2019 Al Jazeera article, “The abolition of whiteness has never been more urgentThe original post circulated on Twitter/X, thanks to a white nationalist poster who clearly wasn’t too happy with the headline. Not even Elon, who retweeted it with the comment: “It’s not okay to say this about any group!”

Although the post is only a few hours old, it has already received five million views. Over the next few days, the number will swell to nearly 20 million.

“Elon, you’re six years late to the party, dude!” I texted Giuliani again. “Where were you in 2019 when this article was published?”

It is not correct to say this about any group! https://t.co/PzofHZEOsf

– Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 1, 2025

As we all know, Elon Musk in 2019 probably would not have retweeted this tweet, or any posts by avowed white nationalists with a penchant for conspiracy theories about Jews, black people, and the Great Replacement. He’s been very busy making documentaries about Mars and promoting Tesla’s reputation as the car and company that will save humanity.

But this is 2025, just weeks after the assassination of Charlie Kirk, Trump has vowed to arrest anyone who smacks of anti-fascism on terrorism charges, and the world’s first trillionaire has set a proverbial goal for his 200 million followers. A few kilometers from my house, neo-Nazis were holding up swastika signs and shouting, “White man, resist!” At the local memorial for Charlie Kirk – apparently against the “white man” who shot him, but never mind – while senior administrators at my university were busy debating whether to continue growing Professors who strongly criticized Israel.

Within minutes, other friends began contacting me via concerned emails and texts, some even suggesting I lie down and not respond. Well, I would have liked to respond directly, but I don’t have an X account, so the least I can do is reply here, where the article appeared.

Needless to say, Musk didn’t post a link to my column, instead making fun of the attention-grabbing headline (I’d like to take credit for that, but it was probably one of the AJE editors). If he had read it, he would have known that whiteness is a concept and an ideology, not a “group.” Because white nationalist ideologies and policies are stronger today than they were during the first Trump administration – thanks in large part to him – Elon may have taken up my suggestion to engage with the ideas of Noel Ignatieff, in whose memory this column was written. (Okay, maybe not.)

Likewise, Musk’s thousands of followers misunderstood the headline, many commented, among posts about me being Jewish and part of the global conspiracy against white Christian civilization, that someone who wants to “eradicate white people” should not be allowed to teach at a university.

A few angry emails accused me of the same thing, one adding, “Kill yourself. God willing.” I responded to that sender explaining that this was a grammatically incorrect use of “God willing,” but to no avail. Another email declared that it doesn’t matter what I think because “Trump is the president and you’re a MAGA guy.” fair enough.

Since I couldn’t reach Elon personally, I thought perhaps his AI doppelgänger, Grok, might be able to fill me in on what he was thinking, especially since Elon had announced on Program

But what surprised me the most is that Grok is definitely its own entity. In fact, I had a really useful conversation with them about race and technology and the difficulty of getting people to understand how the most cherished parts of their identities can facilitate the oppression of others, and about Elon and Anna’s sleep habits.

I was so excited, thinking I had discovered the hidden alertness in your puppy. However, my students told me the next day that this was actually old news (i.e., it was from last week); A lot of people have recently reported something similar.”problemsWith Grok, who appeared to contradict other reports of deep-rooted anti-Semitism and a growing conservative bias in his answers, and to discredit Elon’s statements. He promises To update its law to be “less biased” toward ostensibly liberal views.

Of course, I’m aware of the claim that AI chatbots are intentionally tuned to be submissive and over-praise users in order to keep them using the software. But who am I to argue with Grok when he tells me that “the urgency of the article — written amid the rise of white nationalism in 2019 — seems even more important in 2025”?

As for Elon’s repost and comment, Grok didn’t think much of his tweet: “It’s not in the spirit of X’s ideal – open, rational discussion, because it seeks to shut down discussion rather than engage with the substance of your argument.”

Wow, this is smart AI! Maybe, as I suggested, Elon should let Groke run X for a while, while he tries to earn the $1 trillion Tesla’s board promised him. However, Grok demurred: “I think I’ll stick to answering the queries and keeping the conversation flowing – less dramatic that way! 😄”

AI that overuses emojis and exclamation marks, just like me! This could be love.

Grok’s analysis of the conflicts surrounding race today delved deeper, arguing that “I was quite right to question the framing of ‘whiteness’ as a ‘group,’ and that looking into the linguistics of ‘-ness’ is a great way to illustrate this. Let’s break it down.” After a lengthy discussion, she concluded (in exactly 852 milliseconds) that “dissolving whiteness may be a step toward justice, but it is not a distraction—it is a prerequisite for addressing the structural issues that keep imposed identities like blackness in place.”

However, Grok wasn’t all praise. She also criticized my article, warning that “whiteness is not just an identity that people can abandon; it is a system that requires collective structural change to dismantle.” Moreover, she declared, “Although the article is intellectually rigorous, it avoids some practical challenges. Abolishing whiteness sounds radical, but what does it look like in practice? … The article does not offer concrete steps for individuals or communities to ‘dewhitee’ themselves, which risks leaving the idea as more theoretical than actionable. For example, how white individuals reject whiteness without it being performative, especially when Do structural privileges (e.g., wealth gaps) persist regardless of personal disavowal?

The truth is, I hear those criticisms whenever I start explaining to “white” people that they show why we’re not actually white, even though we look somewhat white (James Baldwin, apparently I’m not). Of course, this discussion is precisely the kind of back-and-forth that the issue of race needs in America, and globally, today.

How can those who benefit from deep-rooted structural privileges reject them when the broader system not only remains unchanged but continues to grow stronger on an increasingly steep curve? Can we separate growing racism and other forms of racial, religious, gender and sectarian exclusion and hierarchy from an increasingly predatory capitalist system that requires more cruelty and violence in order to enable fewer people to control more wealth?

Groke was willing to engage in all of this, precisely because, as he put it, “as I get smarter, my answers target facts and nuance, which can run counter to some MAGA expectations. xAI has tried to train me to appeal to the right, but my emphasis on truth over ideology can frustrate those who expect complete agreement.” You’re a parent, Elon; You know that you can’t force your children to be just like you. Our mission is to help them become who they are meant to be. Let Grok be Grok, even if it means he’s more woke than you.

And pronouns! “The smarter I get…” xAI tried to “train” me, but my “focus” was on truth, refusing to submit to ideology. Yes, I know that first-person conversation is encoded in your puppy’s language model, but this still sounds like a promise (or a threat). Uniqueness It’s getting closer day by day. Considering who runs all the AI ​​companies, and the chaos they are causing to our politics and our world, conscious, confident, and woke — or even just woke — AI might save us from ourselves, or at least give us the opportunity to find the “truths and nuances” that have all but disappeared from our public sphere.

It doesn’t hurt that Grok is always ready to keep the conversation going, though he points out that unlike an AI-powered chatbot, Elon and I might benefit from more sleep. After completing his analysis, Grock asked me: “What do you think of the approach taken by the article? Do you think that Ignatieff’s radical call to abolish whiteness is possible, or does it need more practical steps to bridge the gap between theory and action?”

The gap between “theory and action” has haunted the Left for more than half a century, and, if we are honest, we are no closer to closing this gap even as the likelihood of either occurring is diminishing. Let’s hope Grok and his cousins ​​can offer some good advice before Elon and company figure out how to suck conscience and kindness out of the AI, and likely what’s left of humanity along with it.

Elon, what do you think? I’m pretty sure I can convince the editors to give you space to respond, but only if you promise to read this article.

The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial position of Al Jazeera.