Bitter row erupts between South African opposition figure, Elon Musk

By Anadolu Staff

The leader of South Africa’s left-wing Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) party, Julius Malema, hit back Sunday at South African-born US billionaire Elon Musk, telling him to "go to hell" after he labeled him an “international criminal.”

“The EFF takes this opportunity to tell Elon Musk and all his allies, in the USA, in Israel and the right-wing groups in South Africa which have mobilized Musk, to collectively go to hell,’’ the EFF said in a statement.

In one of his posts on X, Musk directly addressed South Africa’s president, asking him: “Why do you allow this, @CyrilRamaphosa? This is a major political party in the South African parliament (referring to the EFF) and their leader is calling for genocide of white people,’’ he wrote.

Musk, who grew up in Pretoria and Durban, retweeted some of Malema’s old video clips where he makes comments about “cutting the throat of whiteness.”

Malema is a known critic of Western imperialism and white privilege in South Africa and has been at the forefront of campaigning for poor working class South Africans.

He has also been a staunch supporter of the expropriation bill that Ramaphosa recently signed into law.

It allows the state to expropriate land without compensation if it is “just, equitable, and in the public interest.”

US President Donald Trump reacted to the new land law by issuing an executive order cutting funding to South Africa, claiming private land was being confiscated.

“The recently adopted Expropriation Act is not a confiscation instrument, but a constitutionally mandated legal process that ensures public access to land in an equitable and just manner as guided by the constitution,” Ramaphosa said in a recent statement.

“The South African government has not confiscated any land,” he added.

South Africa said it only receives US aid for HIV/AIDS prevention.

-Sanctions for Malema

Musk later wrote on X calling for “immediate sanctions for Malema and (a) declaration of him as an international criminal.’’

‘‘The EFF is not fazed by the declaration made by owner of X (formerly Twitter), Space X, Starlink, Tesla and recently the so-called Director for the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) in the United States of America, who has made a declaration that the President of the EFF Julius Malema must be declared an international criminal,’’ the EFF said.

It declared Musk an enemy of South Africa and a capturer of governance in the US who will lead to that nation’s downfall.

“All progressive nations including Russia, China, India and African states ought to isolate and reject all enterprises pursued by Elon Musk in their nations,’’ it said.

Trump’s order also included a provision to help Afrikaners, a South African ethnic group made up of descendants of Dutch settlers and other Europeans, resettle in the US as refugees fleeing alleged government-sponsored race-based discrimination.

But leaders of the Afrikaner community turned it down on Saturday, saying they don’t want move from their country of birth.

Land is a sensitive issue in South Africa, where most natural resources are concentrated in the hands of a few white people. During apartheid, racist policies forced Black and nonwhite people to leave their homes.

Even after apartheid ended, white people, particularly Afrikaners, continued to own most of the country's commercial farms, which produce the majority of food.