A rumor circulating online claimed Tesla CEO Elon Musk once said: "Wokeness gives people a shield to be mean and cruel, armored in false virtue." While there is no shortage of questionable quotes linked to public figures circulating online — including a few about Musk — this one was genuine.
For example, on Oct. 22, 2024, a user managing a Facebook page called The Trump Republicans posted (archived): "Elon Musk said: 'WOKENESS' gives people a shield to be mean and cruel, armored in false virtue."
In another example from April 2022, a user on X — then known as Twitter, before Musk's purchase of the platform — also posted (archived) the alleged quote.
Likewise, in a post from 2021, a manager of a Facebook page named The Great American Movement said (archived) of the quote: "Elon Musk is 100% right!!!"
Dictionary publishing company Merriam-Webster defines the term "woke" as "aware of and actively attentive to important facts and issues (especially issues of racial and social justice)."
Musk did indeed produce the "wokeness" quote during a video interview with The Babylon Bee — a website that describes its output as "satire." The Babylon Bee published the interview on Dec. 21, 2021. Therefore, we have rated this quotation as a correct attribution.
A user on X reposted (archived) the portion of the interview relevant to this fact check.
The transcript of the relevant question and answer can be seen below (emphasis ours):
Babylon Bee CEO Seth Dillon: The problem of "wokeness," specifically, you mentioned that's like a "mind virus" and it's destructive. Why do you think "wokeness" is so destructive?
Musk: I'm interested in your opinions too, but, you know, like, I mean generally, I think we should be aiming for, like, a positive society and, you know, that it should be ok to, you know, be humorous, like, you know, like we should, we should like, like "wokeness" basically wants to make comedy illegal, which is not cool.
Dillon: We've experienced a little bit of that.
Musk: I mean, like [Dave] Chappelle, what the (censored)? I mean, trying to shut down Chappelle? Come on man. That's crazy. So, you know, so do we want a humorless society that is simply rife with condemnation and hate, basically.
Dillon: And no forgiveness, right? Hmm.
Musk: Yeah. At its heart, "wokeness" is divisive, exclusionary, and hateful. It basically gives mean people a reason, it gives them a shield to be mean and cruel, armored in false virtue.
Musk's reference to comedian Dave Chappelle was about the instances where some of Chappelle's critics condemned him for making jokes during his Netflix specials about people who identify as transgender.