Tech billionaire and former head of the Department of Government Efficiency, Elon Musk, accused a journalist with the BBC of telling whoppers during an interview and proceeded to call him out for his lies right to his face, in an X post that has resurfaced and is once again going viral. The heated exchange concerned accusations by technology reporter James Clayton that there has been a sharp rise in hateful content being published on the site ever since Musk took over ownership of the platform.
Musk, however, was having none of it, confronting Clayton and demanding he provide examples of the kind of hateful content he was talking about. The back-and-forth that ensued from that point forward is now legendary. The clip kicks off with Musk, saying straight to Clayton’s face that he lied, which the reporter denies. “What I claim was…” Musk then cut off Clayton, retorting, “But I say that you don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Clayton scoffs at Musk’s statement, saying, “Oh, really?” Musk returns fire by making a point about who gets to define what “misinformation” is, saying, “Really. You know who’s to say that something is misinformation. Who’s the arbiter of that? Is it the BBC?” Clayton sits in stunned silence for a moment before asking Musk, “You literally asking me?” The owner of X affirms that it is exactly what he’s doing.
Clayton attempts to deflect the question by stating that Musk is the arbiter of what constitutes misinformation on X because he is the company’s owner, to which the billionaire agrees. Musk then challenges the tech reporter, “Who is to say that one person’s misinformation is another person’s information. The point at which you said there is misinformation, like, who is going to decide that?”
Once again, Clayton dodges the question by asking one of his own. “You accept that misinformation can be dangerous? That it can cause real-world harms,” Clayton says. “The point I’m trying to make,” Musk replies, “is that the BBC itself has, at times, published things that are false. Do you agree that has occurred?” Clayton concedes that his employer has likely said things throughout its existence that turned out not to be true.
The SpaceX CEO drives home the point by pointing out that even if the BBC and similar publications strive to be accurate, there will be times when they aren’t. The topic of conversation turns slightly from toward complaints that there aren’t enough folks working at X to police content being posted on the platform, especially when it comes to hate speech. And this is where the fireworks start popping.
Musk challenges Clayton’s assertion by asking, “What hate speech are you talking about? I mean, you use Twitter, right? Do you see a rise in hate speech? Like just a personal anecdote. I don’t.” Clayton responds, “Personally, my, uh, for you, I would see, I get, I get more of that kind of content. Yeah, personally. But I’m not going to talk for the rest of Twitter.”
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Musk presses the issue, asking “You see more hate speech personally?” Clayton again says yes. Musk then asks for clarification on whether the technology reporter is referring simply to content he doesn’t like or hateful speech. “Describe a hateful thing,” Musk says. “Yeah, I mean, you know, just content that will solicit a reaction. Something that may include something that is slightly racist or slightly sexist,” Clayton replies.
“So if you think something is slightly sexist it should be banned?” Musk asks. “Is that what you’re saying?” Clayton, getting a bit defensive, says, “I’m not saying anything.” The tech guru continues to press Clayton to provide an example of what he means by hate speech, but he continues to stumble on his words and fails to give Musk what he’s asking for. This back-and-forth goes on for quite a bit.
Clayton then reveals that he can’t give any examples to back up his claim of hate speech being on the rise because he hasn’t used the “for you” feature on X in over three to four weeks, to which Musk asks how the reporter knows hate speech has become an increasing problem if he’s not using that timeline, hammering him for not being able to give a single example to support his claims.
“Then how did you see the hateful content?” Musk asks Clayton. “Because I’ve been using it, using Twitter since you’ve taken over for the last six months,” he replies. “Then you must have, at some point, seen that “for you” hateful content. I’m asking for one example.” The exchange continues in the same manner, with Musk calling Clayton out for lying by claiming there was a rise in hate speech, but not being able to prove it with actual examples, calling this behavior absurd. Seemingly realizing he’s been caught in his lie, Clayton tries to change the subject, but ultimately Musk gets the upper hand.
Watch them here: