Errol Musk’s distorted views form a coherent narrative rooted in a long
tradition of racial anxiety; the belief that white dominance is the normal
state of the world, and that anything else signals decline. Photo: CNN
screenshot
Errol Musk’s recent CNN interview delivered the sort of commentary that South Africans recognise instantly: equal parts revisionist history, demographic panic, and unintentional satire.
With full confidence, Musk warned that the United States will be “doomed” once white Americans fall below 50% of the population. In almost the same breath, he insisted that Black South Africans were not oppressed under apartheid because he personally “never saw” oppression.
These statements are not simply eccentric. Together they form a coherent narrative rooted in a long tradition of racial anxiety: the belief that white dominance is the normal state of the world, and that anything else signals decline. Academically, this sits squarely within what scholars call racial threat discourse. Publicly, it produces the kind of dark humour that arises when an argument is delivered with earnest seriousness but rests on logic that collapses upon contact with reality.
Musk’s first claim is a classic demographic threat narrative. The idea is simple: if white people lose numerical majority, a society inevitably unravels. This argument has been around for decades, often repackaged, but never supported by evidence. Social scientists have studied demographic shifts extensively. There is no dataset, no model, no historical pattern showing that countries collapse when white people become less than half the population.
What the research does show, however, is that fear of losing majority status can drive political radicalisation, sharpen racial antagonism, and fuel conspiracy theories about cultural or civilisational decline. In other words, demographic change does not destabilise societies. The panic around demographic change does. And that panic is often stoked by exactly the kinds of claims Musk made.
The truly astonishing part of Musk’s interview was his insistence that apartheid did not oppress Black people because he personally did not witness any oppression. This is a remarkable position, not because it is rare, but because it so neatly illustrates how privilege reshapes perception. This represents an epistemic blindness, in other words, an inability to see injustice because one is structurally insulated from it.
Apartheid was not a vague sentiment or a matter of interpretation. It was one of the most thoroughly documented systems of racial domination of the 20th century. It involved Pass laws, forced removals, disenfranchisement, segregated education, job reservation, and the criminalisation of Black mobility. To claim not to have seen oppression under apartheid is less a factual statement than an admission of distance from the lived reality of the majority.
It also reveals how effectively apartheid protected those it privileged from the consequences it inflicted on everyone else. It is this vile dissociative state that harms us all, black and white alike, in our efforts to build a more inclusive South Africa.
Musk’s second major point was a warning that America could “end up like South Africa.” At face value this sounds like a comparative political analysis. In substance, it is a deeply flawed reading of South Africa’s history. The challenges facing the country today; inequality, crime, corruption and institutional fragility, did not emerge because Black South Africans gained political power. They emerged from a century-long racial political economy that democracy has spent only 30 years attempting to unwind.
Blaming democratic transition for apartheid’s legacy is the intellectual equivalent of blaming firefighters for the fire. South Africa is not a cautionary tale about majority rule. It is a case study in how long it takes to rebuild a society after legislated oppression.
Using the country as evidence that white minority status leads to chaos is not analysis. It is narrative opportunism.
The irony at the heart of the panic
The irony threading through Musk’s argument is impossible to miss. He comes from a society where a white minority governed with absolute authority over a Black majority. He now fears a future where white people might become a minority in a society that protects equal rights.
At no point does he acknowledge the difference. His anxiety is not about becoming a minority. It is about losing dominance. And this is the element often left unsaid in public debate. The fear is not that white people will be oppressed. The fear is that equality will feel like oppression to those accustomed to hierarchy.
It is tempting to laugh off Musk’s comments as harmless eccentricity. But demographic panic is not benign. Across the world, such narratives have been used to justify exclusionary policies, fuel racial resentment, and legitimise acts of violence. They shape public imagination not through facts, but through fear.
When public figures repeat these anxieties uncritically, they do not merely express personal opinions. They contribute to a political atmosphere that treats demographic diversity as a crisis rather than a normal consequence of social development.
Errol Musk’s interview reveals less about the demographic realities of the United States and far more about the persistence of apartheid-era thinking. It exposes how deeply the logic of racial hierarchy can endure, even decades after the system that produced it has formally ended. The comedy may be unintentional, but the consequences are not. Our country does not fall apart because of majority rule and greater diversity in our leadership. It will fall apart because people like Musk cannot imagine sharing power in the first place.
Prof Armand Bam is the head of social impact and PGDip NPO Leadership Development at Stellenbosch Business School