The billionaire took issue with the line of questioning, which included race, his work with DOGE and his promotion of misinformation on X.
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Elon Musk sat for a rare, adversarial interview with the Economist this month, in which he was asked about topics including race; his work in government, including the dismantling of the U.S. Agency for International Development; and his promotion of misinformation over X, the social media website he bought in 2022 and later renamed and folded into SpaceX.
Musk appeared to grow agitated by the line of questioning from Economist Editor in Chief Zanny Minton Beddoes, as the billionaire raised the prospect of civil war in Britain, denied that aid cuts had catastrophic impacts and forecast his general popularity as measured by the numbers of his X followers.
Musk also acknowledged at least one regret. “I think I got a little too involved in politics, got carried away frankly,” he said.
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Since the interview, Musk has lashed out, calling Beddoes a “traitor to the West, plain and simple,” a “woke NPC with zero self-awareness” and an “unthinking NPC” — video game parlance for “non-player character,” a common insult from the billionaire.
Musk did not respond to a request for comment. A spokesperson for the Economist referred The Washington Post to a CNBC interview in which Beddoes discussed her conversation with Musk.
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