The Anti-Defamation League, an organization that defends the rights of Jews in the United States, recently accused Elon Musk of allowing anti-Semitic speech on X, formerly Twitter. Although Musk defended himself by arguing for free expression on the Internet, and even threatened to sue, many remembered a controversial ancestor of the tycoon.
Joshua Haldeman (1902-1974), father of Maye Musk and grandfather of Elon, he was an uncomfortable character at the time. Conspiratorial, racist and anti-Semitic, for many he was a man of his time, while others directly condemn him.
Elon Musk admires him, calling him “a reckless adventurer with strongly held opinions,” with “flamboyant conservative populist views” and who “knew that real adventures involve risks.”
In Canada, Haldeman, a chiropractor and amateur archaeologist, propelled the Incorporated Technocracy movement from the 1920s to the early 1940s. His ideology stated that the world should be governed by a totalitarian regime of engineers and scientists based in North America.
According to your idea, These leaders would solve all the problems of society, and that people would only have to work 20 years before retiring.
The Atlantic indicates that Joshua Haldeman’s organization referred to people as numbers, sometimes adding Xs to their names. (Will Elon Musk’s love for the letter X come from here?).
His followers dressed in gray clothes and cars, greeting each other in a special way… as if it were a fascist movement.
But, finally, with Canada’s entry into the Second World War the party was banned, imprisoning Haldeman. Upon his release, he joined the Social Credit Party of Canada, who espoused anti-Semitic ideas.
Joshua Haldeman later emigrated to South Africa, supporting the cause of Apartheid. “South Africa will become the leader of white civilization in the world,” the character even said, also attacking the “anti-white forces.”
Elon Musk was born in South Africa in 1971, and three years later his grandfather, Haldeman, died. For many, the tycoon follows in his footsteps, not only in terms of technology, but also in anti-Semitism.