Elon Musk Doubles Down On George Soros Criticism In CNBC interview: MAGNETO

Following Tesla shareholders' meeting in Austin, Texas on Tuesday, CEO Elon Musk sat down for a wide-ranging interview with woke CNBC host David Faber. They discussed subjects ranging from the global economy, infamous Hunter Biden laptop story, and Tesla's future to the popular CEO's viral posts on his recently acquired social media company Twitter.

Musk defended himself against "antisemitic" allegations following his viral tweets calling out notorious globalist George Soros who funds elections of dangerous far-left politicians in America and other western countries. The Hungarian-American billionaire is known for funding "pet prosecutors" that do the minimum against violent criminals.

"Soros reminds me of Magneto," Musk tweeted early morning Tuesday UTC, referencing a Jewish supervillain who “fights to help mutants replace humans as the world’s dominant species,” as Marvel’s official character description puts it. Originally named Max Eisenhardt (he later changed his name to Erik Magnus Lehnsherr), Magneto was held prisoner in the Auschwitz death camp, which sparked his lifelong quest to end human oppression of mutants such as himself.

Responding to a Twitter user who claimed that Soros has "good intentions," Musk wrote "You assume they are good intentions. They are not. He wants to erode the very fabric of civilization. Soros hates humanity."

The Tesla CEO argued that Soros has exploited a weak point in the American justice system: prosecutorial discretion.

"Soros astutely identified a massive arbitrage opportunity in district attorney elections, where a relatively small amount of money has outsized influence," Musk wrote. He later added: "Soros’ instructions to his pet prosecutors were (essentially) to minimize prosecuting even violent criminals. That’s why a criminal – someone who had already stabbed his roommate – could brutally assault Dave Chapelle on stage with that same deadly weapon and yet receive merely a misdemeanor!"

Musk also slammed far-left activist group Anti-defamation League, ADL. He wrote the "ADL should just drop the 'A,'" suggesting that the Marxist group smears people rather than fight against antisemitism.

Faber asked the Tesla CEO about his tweets in Tuesday's interview. “Let’s talk a bit about your tweets. It comes up a lot, even today, it came up. You know, in anticipation of this meeting. You do some tweets that seem to be, or at least give support to, what some call conspiracy theories.” the left-wing host said.

“Well, yes, but I mean, honestly, you know, some of these conspiracy theories have turned out to be true.” Musk  countered.
“Which ones?” Faber aked

Musk said, “Well, like the Hunter Biden laptop.”

Faber said, “That’s true.”

Musk said, “So, you know, that was a pretty big deal. There was Twitter, and others engaged in an act of suppression of information that was relevant to the public. That’s a terrible thing that happened. That’s election interference.”

Faber asked, “But, how do you make a choice in terms of when you’re going to engage? I mean, for example, even today, Elon, you tweeted this thing about George Soros.”

He added, “You said he wants to erode the very fabric of civilization and Soros hates humanity.”

Musk said, “Yeah, I think that’s true. That’s my opinion.”

Faber said, “Ok, but why share it? Why share it? Why share it when people who buy Teslas may not agree with you? Advertisers on Twitter may not agree with you?”

Musk responded, “Freedom of speech, I’m allowed to say what I want.”

After Faber repeatedly pressed him about his criticism of Soros and whether that hurts his business, Musk made another movie reference: "I’m reminded of a scene in ‘The Princess Bride’ where he confronts the person who killed his father," referring to the character Inigo Montoya from the classic film.

"Offer me money. Offer me power. I don’t care," Musk said, paraphrasing a famous scene where Montoya comes face to face with his father’s killer.

"I’ll say what I want to say and if the consequence of that is losing money, so be it," Musk concluded.

During Tuesday's interview, Musk revealed that the popular Twitter's Community Notes feature has cost the social media company $40 million in business when two big clients reduced spending after their ads received community notes accusing them of false advertising.

The X CEO also said that when his Twitter acquisition closed, the company had negative $3 billion in annual cash flow and $1 billion in the bank. “The analogy I was using was like being teleported into a plane that’s in a nosedive headed to the ground with the engines on fire and the controls don’t work….”

The Tesla CEO again slammed the work-from-home trend. He said it’s morally wrong for people in the “laptop class” to advocate for working from home when service workers, such as people who work in factories, still have to show up in person. He revealed that he takes only two or three days off per year, works seven days a week and gets six hours of sleep a night.

Commenting on Tesla's future, Musk said that the next 12 months will be difficult for the electric car company from a macroeconomic perspective because of increased interest rates pinching consumer budgets. But he said the company could take advantage of its “real-time information on demand” for its cars to adjust pricing effectively.

Musk believes the US Federal Reserve is going to be too slow to lower interest rates when the economy slows, and that will hurt consumer demand. “You can think of raising the Fed rate as somewhat of a brake pedal on the economy, frankly,” Musk said. “It makes a lot of things more expensive. So if the car payment or your home mortgage is absorbing more of your monthly budget then you have less money to buy other things.”

On the effects on global economy if China makes a move to control Taiwan, Musk said: “The Chinese economy and the rest of the global economy are like conjoined twins. It would be like trying to separate conjoined twins. That’s the severity of the situation. And it’s actually worse for a lot of other companies than it is for Tesla. I mean, I’m not sure where you’re going to get an iPhone, for example.”

On ChatGPT-developer OpenAI, the Tesla CEO said that the company exists only because he wanted a non-commercial alternative to Google’s growing dominance in AI. He expressed disappointment that the company has abandoned its non-profit roots. And he said he is no longer friends with Google co-founder Larry Page. “The final straw was Larry calling me a ‘species-ist’ for being pro-human consciousness instead of machine consciousness.”

Musk believes that though he thinks there was at least some voting fraud in the 2020 presidential elections, Joe Biden won and it wasn’t stolen as some critics claim. He also said he voted for Biden but hinted he wasn’t happy with his choice, saying “I wish we could have just a normal human being as president.”

WATCH Elon Mus's CNBC interview