How Elon Musk’s radicalisation can be pinpointed to a single event

A week before Christmas in 2021, Elon Musk tweeted: “Traceroute woke_mind_virus”. It referred to a networking command to determine the source of information, in this case the woke culture of progressive social-justice activists. The centi-billionaire believed that it was this virus that had caused him to become estranged from his transgender daughter.

In the three years since, Elon Musk has gone from sharing memes about fringe cryptocurrencies and promoting clean energy technologies, to spreading extremist conspiracy theories and proclaiming “civil war is inevitable” in the UK following recent civil unrest. This transition from an apolitical moderate to a far-right instigator can perhaps be pinpointed to a single event – maybe even that single tweet.

According to Musk’s biographer Walter Isaacson, the transition of his child had a profound impact on Musk’s world view, with the rejection of him as a father triggering his descent towards fringe conspiracies and setting him on a trajectory towards becoming a leading figure in the culture war.

When she turned 18 in April 2022, his daughter legally changed her name from Xavier Musk to Vivian Jenna Wilson, declaring to the court: “I no longer live with or wish to be related to my biological father in any way, shape or form.” Musk’s girlfriend at the time – Claire Boucher, known professionally as Grimes – told Isaacson that she had “never seen him as heartbroken about anything”.

Having previously donated to Barack Obama’s Democratic Party, Musk now associated the party with this “woke agenda” that had turned his child against him. “This woke-mind virus resides primarily in the Democratic Party,” he told Isaacson. He set out his shifting political stance in a tweet in May 2022.

“In the past I voted Democrat, because they were (mostly) the kindness party,” he wrote. “But they have become the party of division and hate, so I can no longer support them and will vote Republican. Now, watch their dirty tricks campaign against me unfold.”

At the time, Musk still had a “deep disdain” for Donald Trump, but his anti-woke comments drew in right-wing provocateurs like the Canadian psychologist Jordan Peterson, while also distancing himself progressive friends and even partners. When he sent alt-right memes and conspiracy theories to Grimes in 2022, she reportedly replied: “Is this from 4chan or something? You’re actually starting to sound like someone from the far right.”

Grimes has publicly sided with Musk’s daughter since splitting up, and is now involved in a custody battle over the other children they share. Musk’s external strife appears to be directly correlated to the complications within his own internal family dynamics.

In an interview with Peterson last month, Musk publicly spoke about his reasoning behind his daughter’s estrangement for the first time – and the motivation it instilled in him to undergo his own political and moral transition. “Essentially… my son is dead,” he said. “Killed by the woke mind virus. So I vowed to destroy the woke mind virus after that. And we’re making some progress.”

It has been a quick capitulation from centrist moderate to far right instigator for Musk. His tweet about finding the origin of the “woke mind virus” came just three months after tweeting: “I prefer to stay out of politics.”

Since taking over Twitter and renaming it X, Musk is now becoming radicalised by his own social media platform. Its algorithm, which is designed to keep people engaged, appears to be serving him increasingly extreme content, at least according to his ‘likes’ and retweets.

Musk has consistently presented himself as a champion of free speech, with his takeover preceding a mass unblocking of accounts that had previously been banned for spouting extremist views. (It is worth noting that simply writing the word ‘cisgender’ is enough to get an account temporarily banned, as Musk considers it a slur.)

One of those welcomed back was convicted criminal and anti-Islam campaigner Tommy Robinson. Despite having less than a million followers on X, his posts have been viewed more than a billion times – thanks in part to Musk actively responding to Robinson’s anti-immigration posts, which have amplified his false claims to his 193 million followers.

Some believe that Musk’s engagement with such accounts, and the stoking of fears by calling out Prime Minister Keir Starmer about so-called “two-tier policing”, is designed to increase traffic and attention to his beleaguered site. But others suggest it is a direct result of the time he spends on X.

“If you look at it over time, he was somebody who was talking about solving climate change and working on big things, and then all of a sudden has drifted into this echo chamber of conspiracy theories and science denial on extremism and racism,” Sander van der Linden, a professor of social psychology and disinformation at the University of Cambridge, told The Independent this week.

“How do you find yourself in such an environment? What’s changed between then and now is that he’s spending a lot of time on X.”