Despite being in charge of several enormous companies, Musk regularly wades into ostensibly local disputes, not just in Belfast but across Europe, apparently gleaning much of his knowledge from people he follows on X.
“You find a tutoring relationship, one in which Musk is inducted into their talking points,” says Ben Tarnoff, co-author of Muskism: A Guide for the Perplexed.
One of those talking points is his embrace of the term “remigration”. Anti-immigration advocates use it to refer to mass deportations, even of legal migrants.
In its extreme form, it means the removal through force or heavy persuasion of all non-whites or foreigners, even if they were born in or and have deep roots in their home countries.
Slightly more moderate versions focus on recent migrants or those not fully integrated into European societies.
The concept has been linked to violent activity, experts say, and Musk and X have not only been instrumental in spreading the idea across Europe, but in importing it to the United States, Tarnoff says. Last year, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), which oversees US immigration, posted an X message consisting of one word: “Remigrate”.
“Something that Musk shares with members of the American right and particularly with Donald Trump’s circle is a view of Europe and the UK as the ancestral home of white civilisation, but a home that has surrendered itself to the woke forces of multiculturalism,” says Tarnoff.
