When South Africa Tells Elon Musk to “Move On”, It Tells You Everything About Its Decline
The Editorial Board
– April 15, 2026
2 min read
Musk is right on the substance too. South Africa does impose racial ownership and management requirements as a condition of investment. These are not symbolic policies. They act as a tax on capital, raising the cost and complexity of doing business, and pushing investors toward more competitive markets.
The consequences, as this newspaper reported yesterday, are visible in the data. Economic growth is stuck at around 1%, while South Africa’s emerging market peers average around 4%. Unemployment remains above 30%, while the global average is near 5%. Fixed investment is at half the level of peer economies. These are not abstract indicators, incidental to the primary investment policy of the government, they are a direct reflection of the consequences of that policy.
Musk is right in his anger, too, because those figures determine the lived reality of millions of South Africans shut out of work and opportunity. Millions suffer in poverty, because it is not only Musk who is told to “move on”, but any other investor who might have committed capital to South Africa.
The surreality of it all comes together in the politics. The African National Congress (ANC) leadership has crashed the plane. Support is down more than 20 points in a decade. In Johannesburg the Democratic Alliance (DA) leads. What must Oliver Tambo, Albert Luthuli, and Nelson Mandela think to see that? And it is all because of the economy and jobs.
Who in South Africa has lost more than the ANC’s core supporters because of the economy? The press is writing about the new DA leader being a future president, the Economic Freedom Fighters is fine, uMkhonto weSizwe is looking very strong (it has almost 50% of KwaZulu-Natal now, the ANC there is polling at under 10%), and the middle classes live in relative splendour in their enclaves.
But “move on” is the slogan from the president’s office, echoed by Luthuli House. It is at once horrific in its stupidity, but brilliant in the clarity with which it explains why the growth rate is so low, the jobless rate so high, and the ANC is in such trouble.
