South African-Canadian immigrant Elon Musk promised on September 27 that he’d test livestreaming on X (you know it as Twitter) “with some silly stuff,” he said, like a Diablo IV speedrun with no powerful Malignant Heart add-ons. On September 28, he decided to livestream the Texas-Mexico border in Eagle Pass, a five-hour drive from the border town he supposedly lives in, instead.
With an awkward black cowboy hat sitting on his head and a black Dead Space shirt clinging to his red skin, Musk had the look of what he thinks is a real Texan (“My hat is ten years old,” he insisted. “I’ve hip-fired a 50 cal while walking”) concerned about “the border crisis.” He’s hoping his stuttering, freezing “citizen journalism” livestream will change the world, he wrote on Twitter.
But, unlike the powerful pieces of citizen journalism that provide primary-source insight into some of the world’s biggest crises, Musk did not organically capture the Texas border; he interviewed a local congressman and sheriff about “the illegals” and all the cars they’re stealing.
“All over the country,” Sheriff Randy Brown said.
“New York City is buckling under the load [of immigration] already,” Musk wrote on Twitter. This year, NYC reached its peak of homes-per-person since 1940, though many residents can’t afford to live in any of them.
Can Elon Musk solve the border crisis?
“As an immigrant to the United States,” Musk said during his stream, “I am extremely pro-immigrant. I believe that we need a greatly expanded legal immigration system.”
“But, then, by the same token, we should also not be allowing people in the country if they’re breaking the law,” continued Musk, who is currently facing criminal investigation by the Department of Justice. “That doesn’t make sense. The law is there for a reason.”
I have a personal relationship with immigration, too—both of my parents are immigrants, and throughout my life, I’ve seen the challenges that status guarantees you if you, unlike Musk, do not have a father to allegedly fund your move through emeralds. Immigrants whose lives are not studded with emeralds face a number of dehumanizing challenges once over the border, including a higher poverty rate than citizens, family separation, and a justice system built to crush them.
Immigration is a gargantuan, global and historical issue—the first “real Americans,” as we now understand that term, were law-breaking immigrants—and its many scar marks aren’t going to be massaged away by one billionaire…at least not one who keeps all his money.
“Pronouns in bio means the woke mind virus ate your brain,” Musk said on Twitter 16 minutes after writing that “Illegal immigration needs to stop.” Ugh, all his inflammatory opinions are giving me a headache. Next time, stick to Diablo IV.