The most accurate way to remember what happened to Elon Musk last week is to think of him not being interviewed by a person or publication, but by a messy and irrational concept. Musk wasn’t quizzed by a storied financial publication: he was probed, unsuccessfully, by diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) media. The same vapid begrudging made an appearance some days earlier in South Africa, when the Financial Mail (FM) and Currency promoted their newsroom, filled with demonstrable talent and success, something they have every reason to be proud of.

Take David Mckay. He is one of the finest financial and industry reporters in South Africa, but because mediocrity – even failure – is rewarded in the game today, it is unlikely he will ever get to interview Elon Musk. Were he in the shoes of Zanny Minton Beddoes (otherwise, Susan Elizabeth Minton Beddoes-Mallaby), editor of The Economist, we would have probably heard about post-SpaceX IPO activity including acquisitions, the Starship V3, Raptor 3 engines, Tesla’s Optimus humanoid robot production – slated for the third quarter – and Neuralink’s ongoing trials. Instead, we got a jumped-up English public schoolgirl unable to contain her classism, trying to draw Musk into identity or faux guilt traps.

Haughtiness is an agreeable vehicle for DEI, both descending from ultra-elitism, so it could have just as well been Redi Thlabi asking those stupid questions, or Phumzile van Damme, or any local neurotic who leapt atop the dog pile initiated by oily spin doctor Chris Vick on FM and Currency. Minton Beddoes, like Thlabi, like Verashni Pillay, is a recipient of unwarranted privilege, who has made it clear she only holds the position she does because she is willing to advance the superciliousness of the Euro establishment. What happened between her and Musk last week wasn’t business journalism; it was a grasp at virtue.

Took Exception

It's not the first time Musk has been slapped with commentary from an uppity British female. One of Twitter’s non-executive directors was Martha Lane-Fox, or Baroness Lane-Fox of SoHo, who took exception to Musk and today goes around smearing him as “horrendous” (despite her having reportedly raked in ~£1.7m from the Twitter acquisition). Lane-Fox is an accomplished business personality (she co-founded lastminute.com with South African Brent Hoberman), yet she amplifies the distinctly anti-business practice of the B-Corp, effectively a badge companies can wear declaring, “We are woke and better than you (and maybe we’ll start hating Jews – if it's convenient/expeditious – watch this space).”

The Economist’s interview with Musk and the demented reaction to FM and Currency are equal parts an increasingly spastic reflex designed to seize and reset any departure from the choreography of managed decline, occasioned by denial, intellectual dishonesty, untrustworthy stats, and distractions.

Minton Beddoes knows better, surely. Oxford-educated (PPE – of course), a Harvard Kennedy Scholar, an adviser to the finance ministry in Poland followed by two years at the IMF (International Monetary Fund) … and this is what you get? Of all the lines of inquiry available, only questions with the spikiest yet most banal edges. Of all the ways to extract the inner thoughts of the man arguably doing more than anyone to advance civilization … an embittered recitation of Mayor of London Sadiq Khan’s platitudinal X timeline?

One distinction between the FM and Currency non-event and the interview appeared when the subject of USAid emerged. Here Musk faced down a barrage of lies, including the diabolical assertion that his Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) officials' gutting of the apparatus resulted in the deaths of African children – an old insult, still beloved by the British establishment. Here Musk faltered slightly; all he needed to do was to quote the Higley Elite 100 report, published in 2024, that identified three of the top five most prosperous postcodes in America being located in close proximity to Washington DC – the net result of decades of USAid industrial leeching, fronting, and pilfering. Still, he didn’t apologise.

Went Wrong

Which is where FM and Currency went wrong. While the intention was good and just, under the conditions imposed upon them, this act forced them to submit to their critics' claims, including those on the fringe. The idea that things like mergers and acquisitions, exchange rates, or government borrowing costs are subject to an ethnic interpretation sits adjacent to a discussion that occurred amid the University of Cape Town’s Fees Must Fall protest in 2016, where a black student demanded a scientific explanation of a practice in KwaZulu-Natal where lightning is apparently summoned by magic and sent to enemies.

Minton Beddoes shouldn’t – technically – be a failure, but she volunteered to align with one, taking The Economist with her. That is true for any journalist or business personality who endorses the DEI agenda over and above the practicalities of their work – to the point where it becomes the sole reason they’re there.

In addition, there is the Euro dimension to consider, linking both elites to some sort of transfer passage of bad ideas: the Euro elite exchanges advice on how to bankrupt a country, or load it with unsustainable debt – we issue them the algorithm for race-based everything, so that on top of being broke, they may become impossibly stupid.

The theory of elitism is extracted from telling responses. Take the notorious misinformation-er Phumzile van Damme. Unfit (or unwilling) to respond to more precise local issues (for example: the suspension of Johan Mettler and what it implies), a media non-scandal established on identity is far more appropriate a destination for clichés. “Maybe my arm can be twisted to consider the DEI industry again,” she remarked following a breathless attack on FM and Currency.

There it is. A luxury. Something to consider. If the money/captive audience is right. Of course.

We wish her well in that extraordinary industry.