The Elon Musk apartheid claim has triggered a sharp response from South Africa’s Presidency, after the billionaire posted comments comparing current race-related laws to apartheid-era legislation.
What Musk Claimed
Musk wrote on X that South Africa has “more anti-white laws than apartheid had anti-black laws”. He argued that race-based laws are “deeply wrong” and called for “no race-based laws”.
The post spread fast and reignited a familiar South African argument: where transformation ends and discrimination begins.
Presidency rejects the Comparison
The Presidency pushed back, calling the claim “dangerous and false” and warning that apartheid comparisons like this inflame division instead of dealing with the reality South Africans still live with.
Vincent Magwenya, President Cyril Ramaphosa’s spokesperson, also responded directly on X. He said the comments ignore the harm and legacy of apartheid and he described Musk as “an unhinged, unrepentant racist”. Magwenya said South Africans still carry the scars of apartheid and he argued that framing redress as apartheid in reverse insults those experiences.
Madonsela Calls it “Lies”
Thuli Madonsela also weighed in, calling Musk’s comments “lies”. She argued that South Africa cannot become a society of equals without reparative justice and she warned against pretending history has no consequences in the present.
Why this matters now
The Elon Musk apartheid claim hit a nerve because it lands in the middle of South Africa’s real, daily pressure points: inequality, opportunity and how the state tries to fix a brutal past without creating new injustices.
For the Presidency, the line is clear. Apartheid enforced oppression. Redress policies aim to undo it. That is why officials say the Elon Musk apartheid claim is not just “a hot take”. They say it is a harmful comparison that rewrites history and fuels racial tension.
