Transphobe Elon Musk tells J.K. Rowling to tone down her transphobia

Elon Musk and J.K. Rowling Photo: Shutterstock composite

Transphobic billionaire Elon Musk told transphobic possible-billionaire J.K. Rowling to try writing something “interesting and positive” this weekend after she shared a 709-word essay explaining her transphobic views on Musk’s social media platform, X. Musk has also repeatedly used X to promote transphobic views to his 182.3 million followers.

Musk recently saw Rowling’s April 6 post in which she shared her trans-exclusive definition of a woman and said, yet again, that trans women are a violent threat to cis women and that gender-affirming care harms children — neither of which is true.

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Musk replied in a now-deleted post, “While I heartily agree with your points regarding sex/gender, may I suggest also posting interesting and positive content on other matters?”

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In a May 5 post referencing Musk’s reaction, Rowling wrote, “Hahaha, just realised that I missed being advised to share more positive content yesterday.” She then linked to an article about her writing career.

Musk commented on her post, writing, “I need to be reminded of this myself from time to time.” Around the same time, Musk highlighted a post asking if robots in the future will be able to fart, shared a video from transphobic Daily Caller broadcaster Matt Walsh, and pushed the baseless claim that election fraud in the U.S. is rampant — it’s not.

Later that same day, Musk commented on a post about Rowling, writing, “Rowling rocks.”

Rowling’ has a long history of transphobia. In 2019, she first revealed her anti-trans views by tweeting her support for an anti-transgender activist. Since then, she regularly spreads fearmongering misinformation about how trans women would potentially commit assaults if allowed in women’s restrooms, has written long essays denigrating trans women, repeats baseless conspiracy theories about kids being coerced into transitioning, and promotes transphobic merchandise vendors on social media.

Additionally, Rowling has come out in support of conversion therapy for trans people and claimed that almost everyone agrees with her, even as famous people that she has worked with condemned her words. She also published a book about a man who wears dresses in order to kill women. She recently donated £70,000 (about $89,000) to a transphobic Scottish women’s organization to oppose trans-inclusive governmental policies.

Musk is no better.

Since Musk bought X (formerly Twitter) for $44 billion in October 2022, hate content has proliferated on the site. Musk himself reinstated numerous right-wing, anti-LGBTQ+, and neo-Nazi accounts that had previously been banned from the platform. He will soon reinstate the account of Nick Fuentes, a white supremacist leader who dined with President Donald Trump and thinks that having sex with women is gay.

Musk has also repeated transphobic talking points and neo-Nazi conspiracy theories like the “Great Replacement Theory,” causing big-name advertisers to flee. The site’s ad revenue has decreased by 50% and it may lose another $75 million as advertisers stay away. Musk has responded by telling advertisers to “f**k off” and suing watchdog organizations that have reported on X’s hate speech problem.

Five of the accounts most responsible for pushing anti-LGBTQ+ “groomer” attacks on X generated up to $6.4 million per year for X in ad revenues, according to a March 2023 report from the Center for Countering Digital Hate.