Statement on Elon Musk’s Posts on the Debunked “Grooming Gangs” Conspiracy and H1B Visas
Statement on Elon Musk’s Posts on the Debunked “Grooming Gangs” Conspiracy and H1B Visas
Justice For All is deeply concerned about Elon Musk’s recent posts on the social media platform X.1 Musk, X’s main shareholder, has used the platform to spread hate against Pakistani Muslims in the UK, using a “Grooming Gangs” conspiracy theory debunked in 2020 by a Home Office report.2 Despite evidence to the contrary, extremist nationalist groups have been propagating the conspiracy for over a decade.3 Musk has posted about 150 times in the past 5 days about “Grooming Gangs” by men of Pakistani background.4 The conspiracy was born out of a story in the Times in 2011, after the conviction of 56 men of Pakistani origin in the Midlands. The Home Office’s 2020 report found that group-based perpetrators were most commonly white men.5 However, anti-immigration extremists have sensationalized and recycled the non-white perpetrators’ victims’ stories, ignoring those connected to white perpetrators. While we sympathize with the victims, Musk has misquoted the total number of victims as 250,000. This figure also comes from a debunked report that extrapolated from a sample of 264 convictions over 12 years. Of this report, an expert has said it is “rare to find a publication so flawed yet so influential.”6
It has been suggested that Musk used the “Grooming Gangs” conspiracy to divert attention on X from his failure at defending his H1B visa advocacy for the US by reinvigorating anti-Muslim immigration discussions. Earlier, Musk had faced backlash from many of his followers for advocating for increasing the number of H1B visas. Both Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy, appointees to lead President-elect Trump’s new Department of Government Efficiency, favored raising the number of H1B visas to bring in foreign workers.7 Musk defended his position on increasing H1Bs by stating that only the top 0.1% talent would be brought in. This claim was squashed when researchers posted the number of low level, low paying jobs that have been filled by Musk using H1B workers at Tesla. Clearly, it is not the top talent from foreign countries that are being brought in.8 Shortly after posting this research (see photo below), Laura Loomer’s account was demonetized (subscribers were removed) and her blue check (for verified accounts) was removed.
Some Hindutva accounts, as well as pro-Israel accounts, have also latched onto this discussion, welcoming distraction away from the Indian treatment of minorities, as well as Israel’s genocide of the Palestinians.
Musk has a following of around 209 million on his X account. Any person with such a large following must exercise restraint and common-sense in the posts that are made. By utilizing nationalistic and anti-Muslim sentiment, Musk deflects attention from himself. In the process he does not worry about the attacks and violence that his posts might generate.
Justice For All emphasizes the fact that the “Grooming Gangs” conspiracy has been thoroughly debunked, and no attention should be paid to anyone, including Musk, who tries to revive it. In addition, Justice For All reminds our fellow Americans that the foreign workers coming into the country are not the ones to blame for taking up available jobs – this lies at the feet of employers. We have seen corporate greed displace American workers under the eyes of our lawmakers. Foreign workers – Indians, Chinese or others – should not be targeted in response to American corporate greed and the desire for maximizing profits.
=====
1 See some posts by Musk on the “Grooming Gangs” conspiracy on the thread https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1873969439076647353?t=qSy1hUsF6rjskkY8dPwFlA
2 Tom Symonds, “Grooming gangs and ethnicity: What does the evidence say?,” BBC, April 4, 2023, https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-65174096
3 Symonds, “Grooming gangs and ethnicity,” https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-65174096
4 X posts were counted over the last few days by tracing posts and re-posts. This number does not include replies on posts made by Musk.
5 Cockbain et al, “; Grooming and the ‘Asian sex gang predator’: the construction of a racial crime threat,” Institute of Race Relations, 54: 4, 2013, ; https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0306396813475983; Ella Cockbain and & Waqas Tufail, “Analysis: A new Home Office report admits grooming gangs are not a ‘Muslim problem,’”; The Guardian, December 19, 2020, https://www.ucl.ac.uk/news/2020/dec/analysis-new-home-office-report-admits-grooming-gangs-are-not-muslim-problem
6 https://policinginsight.com/feature/analysis/when-bad-evidence-is-worse-than-no-evidence-quilliams-grooming-gangs-report-and-its-legacy/
7 Jim Hoft, Jim; “Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy Face Backlash from MAGA Movement for Not Only Backing But Offering More Visas to Foreign-Born Skilled Workers,” Gateway Pundit, December 27, 2024, ; https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2024/12/elon-musk-vivek-ramaswamy-clash-maga-movement-foreign/
8 https://x.com/lauraloomer/status/1872396020224561279?t=qSy1hUsF6rjskkY8dPwFlA
Related Posts
