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Crikey
Crikey
Charlie Lewis

Elon Musk and Malcolm Roberts because sure why not?

There’s simply no other way to put it: the world’s richest man has approvingly replied to the theories of One Nation Senator Malcolm Roberts.

We’ve been keeping a close eye on the faintly tragicomic ride Elon Musk has been on since taking over Twitter — “Comedy is legal again”. The suspension of accounts that made jokes about him. The firing of thousands of people. The fleeing advertisers. The time when he got on stage with Dave Chappelle and barely got a word out for the boos.  

And now this. After @KenekoaTheGreat (an apparently prolific conspiracy theory account whose bio says it was “resurrected” by Musk) posted a speech by Roberts saying “Australia should not cede its sovereignty to the [World Health Organization] due to the organization’s corruption that generates billions for its owner, Bill Gates, and because Tedros is an evil ‘killer’ tied to a terrorist organization”. The clip was sourced from an account called “Rage against the vaccine”, if that clears anything up for you.

Musk agreed: “Countries should not cede authority to WHO”.

Roberts (is he still going by Malcolm-Ieuan: Roberts., the living soul?) is familiar to Australians for all manner of crankery — the most dense (in every sense) of which is his contention that climate change is a hoax perpetrated by a sinister cabal of bankers in cahoots with the United Nations in order to create a world socialist government. 

Musk clearly hadn’t had time to Google Roberts, but of course, this isn’t the first time Musk has cosied up to Australia’s far right.

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