Elon Musk’s rightward flip features a fringe fascination: Civil warfare

Tech billionaire Elon Musk has repeatedly prophesied a future civil war related to immigration.

Musk has posted about the subject on his social media platform X at least eight times in the past 10 months, according to a review of his posts by NBC News. And his posts usually include a specific prediction: He thinks that Europe in particular is headed toward a “civil war” due to the arrival of refugees from other continents. 

Musk’s interest in the subject of a civil war poked into public view earlier this month when he weighed in on anti-immigration street riots happening across Great Britain. “Civil war is inevitable,” he wrote on X. 

The post received 9.8 million views and it caused a furor among some in the U.K., initiating a heated back and forth with the office of British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, who was dismissive of Musk’s prediction, saying there was “no justification” for such comments. Other U.K. critics said Musk was only inflaming tensions by making such a dire prediction. 

Musk’s rhetoric is unheard-of for a corporate executive speaking in public, but the prediction of a civil war has become a frequent talking point among some far-right activists who view a civil war in Europe or the U.S. as not only unavoidable but also as something to be welcomed. 

“What you’re seeing in these calls for civil war is a white supremacist clarion call. It is a dog whistle,” said Jon Lewis, a research fellow at George Washington University’s Program on Extremism. 

Musk has stopped short of issuing a call to arms and has not mentioned the race or religion of refugees arriving in Europe, but Lewis said that Musk doesn’t need to be explicit to get his message across. He said he sees similarities between Musk’s posts and the language in white supremacist chat rooms where commenters are obsessed with changing demographics. 

“Rhetorically, there is very little difference, and at this point it’s barely coded language. It’s everything but explicit incitement,” he said. 

“It’s only a matter of time, unfortunately, before someone listens,” he added, warning that Musk’s words could inspire violence by others. 

Musk did not directly respond to questions about his civil war predictions in an email to NBC News.

Hyperbole about civil war is common on the far right. White nationalist Nick Fuentes said last year that Ireland was “on the brink of civil war” because of immigration, and followers of the “Boogaloo” anti-government movement have for years called explicitly for civil war. 

The far-right’s rhetoric around a future civil war is part of a philosophical framework referred to as accelerationism. Extreme practitioners of the philosophy believe that stoking tensions around topics like immigration could lead to wars and hasten a larger societal collapse, creating an opportunity to reformulate society in a way that’s more favorable to extremists. A gunman who attacked a synagogue in Poway, California, in 2019 said his goal was to hasten the start of a “civil war” over religion, race and firearms. While some progressives also talk about dismantling existing systems, predictions of a civil war are less common on the left.

Katie Paul, who tracks online extremism as director of the nonprofit Tech Transparency Project, said that many Boogaloo adherents are now active on Musk’s app X after other social media apps kicked them off. 

“They all share this interest in the dismantling of the systems that we currently live in,” Paul said. 

Musk’s profile gives his civil war predictions unusual reach. One of the world’s wealthiest people as the CEO of Tesla and SpaceX, he is an increasingly influential media figure as the owner of X. On Monday, Musk hosted a conversation on X with former President Donald Trump, the Republican nominee for president, and he has invited Vice President Kamala Harris for a similar event. She has not accepted.

Musk has received encouragement on X for sharing the idea of a civil war, including from prominent figures. 

“Not inevitable…it’s underway,” wrote Michael Flynn, a former national security adviser in the Trump administration, in response to a tweet from Musk about civil war earlier this month. Flynn was pardoned by Trump after pleading guilty to lying to the FBI about his communications with a Russian diplomat. Flynn did not immediately respond to a request for comment Friday about his civil war statement. 

Musk has invoked the idea in relation to numerous conflicts. Last October, days after the Hamas terrorist attacks on Israel, he responded to pro-Palestinian demonstrations in Europe with a call for reduced immigration onto the continent. 

“If current trends continue, civil war in Europe is inevitable,” he said on X. It was a reply to Konstantin Kisin, an author, podcaster and Russian-born immigrant to the U.K. 

Kisin responded to Musk: “Civil war implies someone will fight back. Based on current evidence, I’m not even sure that will happen.” 

In a phone interview, Kisin said he does not favor fighting back in a literal sense, and he said it was “preposterous” for anyone to suggest that Musk’s prediction is a dog whistle that encourages violence. 

“What Elon Musk is doing is pointing out the fact that Europe is moving in a particular direction on demographics, on economics, on multiculturalism, and these are all perfectly valid points,” he said. 

Asked about his views on demographics, Kisin said that, with migration at current levels, “the inevitable outcome is inter-ethnic tension.” 

Immigrants to Europe come from many places. In the U.K., four of the top five non-E.U. countries of origin are former British colonies, according to government statistics: India, Nigeria, Pakistan and Zimbabwe. 

Musk repeated his forecast four times in October, writing that mass migration “lays the groundwork for civil strife, if not war”; that Europe “is trending towards civil war”; that Europe “is headed for civil war”; and again that it is “trending towards civil war.”

In November, Musk continued his prophecy of a civil war but pivoted his rationale. In response to an article about Germany rearming its military after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, he wrote, “Civil war is brewing.” Then, several days later, he returned to the subject of immigration and posted, “Europe appears to be headed for civil war.” 

A civil war, though, has not come to pass. 

A civil war is different from terrorist attacks, violent street demonstrations or other political violence. It is usually defined by the emergence of an organized rebel army engaged in armed conflict seeking to overthrow a government. Some researchers argue that a conflict should have at least 1,000 battle deaths before people label it a civil war. 

In his X posts, Musk has not gone into detail on how he sees a civil war playing out. Does he think, for example, that migrants will form a rebel army to overthrow Westminster? Or that native Britons will? Or is he using “civil war” as a catch-all term for street violence? 

Experts in civil wars said that Musk is out of his depth on the subject. They said it’s very unlikely that Europe will experience a civil war due to immigration, and they said Musk appears to greatly overestimate the power and organization of people arriving in Europe. 

“Immigrants are not an organized rebel group ready to commit violence,” said Megan Stewart, an associate professor of public policy at the University of Michigan who studies political violence. 

“They are often fleeing dire and dangerous situations and just trying to live their lives,” she said. 

She said that, historically, the much more common dynamic in the U.S. and the U.K. is that immigrants are victims of violence perpetrated by right-wing extremists with white supremacist ideologies. 

In the past two weeks, far-right activists in Great Britain have used misinformation about an attack on a Taylor Swift-themed dance class as a pretext for anti-immigrant demonstrations. There have been mob attacks on mosques, immigrant-owned shops and hotels housing asylum-seekers. The suspect in the dance-class attack in which three children died is a 17-year-old who was born in the country, according to police. 

Thomas Zeitzoff, an associate professor of public affairs at American University who studies political violence, said that Musk’s prediction of war is likely to feed into false fears about immigrants. 

“It amplifies this misperception that these groups are wanting to fight,” he said. 

Zeitzoff said he believes Musk’s posts could encourage some anti-immigrant forces to take up arms. 

“If you start thinking that they’re ready to fight, then maybe we need to be, too,” he said. 

Some of Musk’s posts about “civil war” have received thousands of replies. The sentiment has been split, with some X users agreeing with him and others accusing Musk of “fear mongering.” Still others say they wonder why he’s spending his time on social media. At least one account said they were ready to fight. 

“Yep, ready cocked n loaded,” one X user responded to Musk last year, referencing firearms. 

Musk used similar “war” language when talking about immigration Monday with Trump in a live joint event on X. 

“We don’t have a secure border, and we have people streaming over. It looks like a ‘World War Z’ zombie apocalypse at times,”  he told Trump. He was apparently comparing immigrants to zombies and referring to a 2013 action movie starring Brad Pitt. 

Musk has a record of spreading false information that could stir up fear of immigrants. Last year, he embraced the debunked “great replacement” theory, which says that there is a top-down plot to replace the white population with nonwhite “hordes.” He has smeared Haitians as cannibals, and he has boosted false claims that non-citizens are registering to vote in the U.S. 

After those claims were debunked, Musk has had various responses. He said he was “sorry” for his post about the great replacement theory but left it online. After criticism of his Haitian posts, he said he wanted to “screen immigrants for potential homicidal tendencies and cannibalism.” And after his claims about immigrants voting were found to be false, he has repeated them. 

Last year, the Justice Department sued Musk’s rocket company SpaceX saying it had discriminated against refugees in hiring. Musk called the case a “weaponization of the DOJ for political purposes” and said the company had been warned that hiring people who were not permanent U.S. residents would violate the law. SpaceX countersued, saying the regulatory system violates the Constitution, and it has won a temporary stay. 

Musk’s posts about civil war typically have a racial dimension. One of his posts came as a reply to an account criticizing “demographic pressure” from immigrants. Another time, Musk responded after the same account expressed dismay at the lack of assimilation by immigrants. 

“They are not there to be part of French or German or Italian or Swedish culture. They are there to replace you,” the account wrote. 

“Europe is trending towards civil war,” Musk replied. 

Musk’s adult daughter Vivian Jenna Wilson said in a recent post on the app Threads that her father once called Arabic the “language of the enemy.” She told NBC News that Musk made the comment after she said she wanted to learn the language when she was 6 years old. 

Asked for comment about that episode, Musk replied in an email to NBC News that Wilson “was killed by the woke mind virus. Now it will die.” 

Musk, a U.S. citizen who was born in South Africa, sometimes visits Europe including for business reasons. His companies including Tesla have operations there. 

But there are now calls for Musk to be held accountable in Europe for the impact of his words. British lawmakers told Politico they want to haul Musk before Parliament to answer questions, and some British columnists have suggested that Musk should face an investigation over his comments. 

“Were Musk to continue stirring up unrest, an arrest warrant for him might produce fireworks from his fingertips, but as an international jet-setter it would have the effect of focusing his mind,” wrote Bruce Daisley, a former executive at Twitter, which is now the Musk-owned X, in The Guardian on Monday. 

Musk reacted to Daisley’s column on X, calling him “insufferable.” He said in response to a separate Guardian column that the newspaper “should be on trial for aiding & abetting the destruction of Britain.” He also accused the British government of failing to guarantee free speech. 

In a different context, Musk once celebrated the idea that the U.S. could devolve into civil war, with him emerging in the end as president. 

In an end-of-year set of predictions on X in December 2022, former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev forecasted that California and Texas would break off from the U.S. and that Musk would win the presidential election “after the new Civil War’s end.” 

Musk replied to Medvedev: “Epic thread!!”