Tesla CEO Elon Musk faced online backlash after sharing a post by white supremacist Stefan Molyneux on X (formerly Twitter), which claimed that “there is no such thing as colonisation” in India. Molyneux argued that because Indians in England become English, and the English in India became Indian, the British never ruled India—a post widely criticised as a whitewashing of colonial crimes.
Molyneux, a Canadian activist banned from YouTube in 2020 for promoting conspiracy theories, has previously suggested racial hierarchies. His X post amassed nearly 18 million views, while Musk’s share generated another 16.7 million views.
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Experts called out the post as misleading. Satish K Sharma, a UK-based author and fellow of the Royal Asiatic Society, described it as a “reductionist statement” undermining India’s history. Critics highlighted the $64.82 trillion drained from India during British colonialism and the human toll, including millions of deaths from famines and extreme poverty.
Analysts argued that Molyneux’s analogy equating colonialism to legal migration was fallacious and an attempt to whitewash historical atrocities. Musk’s amplification of the post intensified outrage, with many condemning it as dismissive of India’s civilisational legacy.
