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Tesla Chief Executive Office Elon Musk speaks at his company’s factory in Fremont, California.

Noah Berger | Reuters

Elon Musk, the CEO of SpaceX, Tesla and Twitter, accused “the media” and “elite colleges and high schools” of being “racist” against white and Asian people, espousing his views without providing evidence on Sunday.

Musk posted his comments on Twitter, where he has nearly 130 million followers, in response to news that media organizations around the country decided to cut the comic strip “Dilbert” from syndication after its creator, Scott Adams, delivered a racist tirade in a video on his YouTube channel last week.

In the video, Adams discussed a poll conducted by right-leaning Rasmussen Reports that said 26% of Black respondents disagreed with the statement “It’s OK to be white.” The phrase referenced in their poll has been labeled a “hate slogan” by the Anti-Defamation League. In his video, Adams called Black people who rejected that phrase as a “hate group.”

Adams also said that he personally chose to live in a community where few or no Black people lived, and then advised his white viewers to “get the hell away from Black people,” saying he didn’t “want to have anything to do with them.”

Adams’ video was published during Black History Month in the U.S., which was established in 1976 by President Gerald Ford as a period during which to honor the struggles and contributions of Black Americans.

Among the news outlets that dropped “Dilbert” were the Los Angeles Times, The Oregonian, The Cleveland Plain Dealer, The Washington Post and USA Today.

Musk’s track record

Brian Levin, a civil rights attorney and director of the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism at California State University said, in response to Musk’s tweets:

“Systemic racism requires not only widespread bigotry to be held within a group but also a structural component that allows discrimination and oppression to be imposed on a minority because of an advantage of access and power. A white billionaire from South Africa who recently lost a high profile racial discrimination case may not be in the best position to offer counsel.”

As CNBC previously reported, a San Francisco federal court ruled that Tesla must pay a former worker, Owen Diaz, for damages after he endured a hostile work environment and racist abuse at the company’s factory where he previously worked as an elevator operator.

Additionally, the EEOC, a federal agency responsible for enforcing civil rights laws against workplace discrimination, has issued a cause finding against Tesla, according to a financial filing from the company last year.

Prior to the EEOC finding, the California Civil Rights Department, formerly known as the Department of Fair Employment and Housing, sued Tesla after a three-year investigation, alleging widespread racist discrimination at Tesla factories and facilities across the state.

The CRD alleged that Tesla has kept Black workers in lower-level roles at the company even when they have the skills and experience to be promoted to more senior roles; assigned Black workers more demanding, dangerous and dirty work in their facilities; and retaliated against Black workers who complained formally about what they endured, including racist slurs used by managers.

Tesla called the CRD’s lawsuit “misguided,” and later countersued the agency.

The data on racism

Musk made his claims about “the media” and some higher educational institutions and high schools in the U.S. without presenting any evidence.

Specifically, he wrote, “The media is racist.” He then added, “For a *very* long time, US media was racist against non-white people, now they’re racist against whites & Asians. Same thing happened with elite colleges & high schools in America. Maybe they can try not being racist.” 

According to Pew Research, newsroom employees are much more likely to be white (and male) than U.S. workers overall. In film and TV, according to McKinsey research, “Black talent is underrepresented across the industry, particularly off-screen.” Less than 6% of the writers, directors and producers of U.S.-produced films are Black, McKinsey found.

According to the most recently available U.S. Census Bureau data, about 29% of non-Hispanic white people in the U.S. have attained a bachelor’s degree or higher levels of education, about 18.4% of Black people in the U.S. have attained that level of education, and about 51.3% of Asian people have done so.

Despite Asian American educational attainment, Asians are underrepresented in leadership roles in U.S. academic libraries and higher education, according to research by Mihoko Hosoi, published in the Journal of Library Administration in 2022.

Musk also replied to one Twitter account that said unarmed white people affected by police violence only get a fraction of the media attention paid to Black people injured or killed by police. Musk claimed that the media coverage is “Very disproportionate to promote a false narrative.”

According to research by Brookings Institute, “Black people are 3.5 times more likely than white people to be killed by police when Blacks are not attacking or do not have a weapon,” and “Black teenagers are 21 times more likely than white teenagers to be killed by police.”

Hate speech on Twitter

Imran Ahmed, the CEO and founder of the Center for Countering Digital Hate, said in response to Musk’s tweets, “Elon Musk seeks to portray himself as some weird, bizarro champion of anti-racism whereas in reality when he took over Twitter, he made a series of disturbing decisions to change its rules to welcome racist hate back onto the platform and, as our research has shown, to profit from the controversy and attention hate generates.”

Ahmed also called on remaining advertisers to reevaluate whether they want to spend their budgets on Twitter, given Musk’s beliefs and changes he has made to the Twitter platform.

Since leading a $44 billion leveraged buyout of Twitter late last year and appointing himself “Chief Twit,” or CEO, Musk has stirred controversy and lost money at the social media business.

Under Musk’s watch, Twitter has restored the accounts of some previously banned and divisive figures, including neo-Nazi website founder Andrew Anglin. His moves led to an unprecedented rise in hate speech on the platform, the Center for Countering Digital Hate found, and drew an immediate outcry from civil rights leaders.

Hundreds of Twitter’s top advertisers have since halted or pulled back on ad spending there. One firm estimated that Twitter’s ad revenue declined as much as 70% in December from the previous year, Reuters reported. Musk acknowledged in a November tweet that the company suffered a “massive drop in revenue” after advertisers paused spending on the social media platform.

Musk and representatives at Twitter, SpaceX and Tesla did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

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Apple’s 3-day loss in market cap swells to almost $640 billion

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Apple's 3-day loss in market cap swells to almost 0 billion

(L-R) Apple CEO Tim Cook, Vivek Ramaswamy and Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem attend the inauguration ceremony before Donald Trump is sworn in as the 47th U.S. President in the U.S. Capitol Rotunda in Washington, D.C., on Jan. 20, 2025.

Saul Loeb | Afp | Getty Images

While the stock market broadly fared better on Monday than in the prior two trading days, Apple got hammered once again, losing 3.7%, as concerns mounted that the company will take a major hit from President Donald Trump’s tariffs.

The sell-off brings Apple’s three-day rout to 19%, a downdraft that has wiped out $638 billion in market cap.

Apple is one of the most exposed companies to a trade war, analyst say, due largely to its reliance on China, which is facing 54% tariffs. Although Apple has production in India, Vietnam and Thailand, those countries also face increased tariffs as part of Trump’s sweeping plan.

Among tech’s megacap companies, Apple is having the roughest stretch. On Monday, the only stocks to drop in that group of seven were Apple, Microsoft and Tesla.

The Nasdaq finished almost barely up on Monday after plummeting 10% last week, its worst performance in more than five years.

Analysts say Apple will likely either need to raise prices or eat additional tariff costs when the new duties come into effect. UBS analysts estimated on Monday that Apple’s highest-end iPhone could rise in price by about $350, or around 30%, from its current price of $1,199.

Barclays analyst Tim Long wrote that he expects Apple to raise prices, or the company could suffer as much as a 15% cut to earnings per share. Apple may also be able to rearrange its supply chain so that imports to the U.S. come from other countries with lower tariffs.

Apple declined to comment on the tariffs.

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Apple’s highest-end iPhone could see $350 price hike in U.S. on Trump tariffs, analyst predicts

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Apple's highest-end iPhone could see 0 price hike in U.S. on Trump tariffs, analyst predicts

A customer checks Apple’s latest iPhone 16 Plus (right) and Apple’s latest iPhone 16 Pro Max (left) series displayed for sale at Master Arts Shop in Srinagar, Jammu and Kashmir, on Sept. 26, 2024.

Firdous Nazir | Nurphoto | Getty Images

President Donald Trump’s reciprocal tariffs could lead Apple to raise the price of the iPhone 16 Pro Max by as much as $350 in the U.S., UBS analysts estimated Monday.

The iPhone 16 Pro Max is Apple’s highest-end iPhone on the market, and currently retails for $1,199. UBS is predicting a nearly 30% increase in retail price for units that were manufactured in China.

Apple’s $999 phone, the iPhone 16 Pro, could see a smaller $120 price increase, if the company has it manufactured in India, the UBS analysts wrote.

Shares of Apple have plummeted 20% over the past three trading days, wiping out nearly $640 billion in market cap, on concern that Trump’s tariffs will force the company to raise prices just as consumers are losing buying power.

“Based on the checks we have done at a company level, there is a lot of uncertainty about how the increased cost sharing will be done with suppliers, the extent to which costs can be passed on to end-customers, and the duration of tariffs,” UBS analyst Sundeep Gantori wrote in the note.

Apple, which does the majority of its manufacturing in China, is one of the most exposed companies to a trade war. China has a potential incoming 54% tariff rate — before new increases were proposed Monday. Smaller tariffs were also placed on secondary production locations, such as India, Vietnam and Thailand.

JPMorgan Chase analysts predicted last week that Apple could raise its prices 6% across the world to offset the U.S. tariffs. Barclays analyst Tim Long wrote that he expects Apple to raise prices, or it could suffer as much as a 15% cut to earnings per share.

If Apple were to relocate iPhone production to the U.S. — a move that most supply chain experts say is impossible — Wedbush’s Dan Ives predicts an iPhone could cost $3,500.

Morgan Stanley analysts on Friday said Apple could absorb additional tariff costs of about $34 billion annually. They wrote that although Apple has diversified its production in recent years to additional countries — so-called friendshoring — those countries could also end up with tariffs, reducing Apple’s flexibility.

After last week’s “reciprocal tariff announcement, there becomes very little differentiation in friend shoring vs. manufacturing in China — if the product is not made in the US, it will be subject to a hefty import tariff,” Morgan Stanley wrote.

Last week, the firm estimated that Apple may raise its prices across its product lines in the U.S. by 17% to 18%. Apple could also get exemptions from the U.S. government for its products.

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Elon Musk’s brother slams Trump tariffs, calls them ‘permanent tax on the American consumer’

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Elon Musk's brother slams Trump tariffs, calls them 'permanent tax on the American consumer'

Kimbal Musk, co-founder of The Kitchen Community, speaks during the annual Milken Institute Global Conference in Beverly Hills, California, May 3, 2016.

Patrick T. Fallon  | Bloomberg | Getty Images

Elon Musk’s younger brother, Kimbal, took to the social network X on Monday to lambaste President Donald Trump’s tariffs, calling them a “structural, permanent tax on the American consumer.” He also said Trump appears to be the “most high tax American President in generations.”

“Even if he is successful in bringing jobs on shore through the tariff tax, prices will remain high and the tax on consumption will remain the form of higher prices because we are simply not as good at making things,” Kimbal Musk wrote on X, one of the companies in his brother’s extensive portfolio.

The younger Musk owns a restaurant chain called The Kitchen, is a board member at Tesla and a former director at SpaceX and Chipotle. He has also co-founded and invested in other food and tech startups, including Square Roots, an indoor farming company, and Nova Sky Stories, a creator of drone light shows that he bought from Intel.

Elon Musk is a top advisor to Trump, overseeing the so-called Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, an effort to drastically cut federal spending, largely through layoffs, and consolidate or eliminate agencies and regulations. However, his relationship with some key figures in the Trump administration has been showing signs of strain in recent days as the president’s sweeping tariffs have led to a dramatic selloff in stocks, including for Tesla, which is down 42% this year and just wrapped up its worst quarter since 2022.

Over the weekend, Elon Musk took aim at Trump trade advisor Peter Navarro, disparaging his qualifications in a post on X.

“A PhD in Econ from Harvard is a bad thing, not a good thing,” Musk wrote, after Navarro told CNN on Saturday that “The market will find a bottom” and that the Dow will “hit 50,000 during Trump’s term.” It’s currently at about 38,200.

Musk also said that Navarro hasn’t built “sh—.” Navarro told CNBC on Monday that Musk is “not a car manufacturer” but rather a “car assembler,” dependent on parts from Japan, China and Taiwan.

Tesla was seeking a more moderate approach to trade and tariffs in a recent letter to the U.S. Trade Representative.

According to Federal Election Commission filings, Kimbal Musk this year has contributed funds to the Libertarian National Committee and Libertarian Party of Connecticut. In 2024, while his brother became the biggest financial backer and promoter of Trump, Kimbal donated to Unite America PAC, a group that markets itself as a “philanthropic venture fund that invests in nonpartisan election reform to foster a more representative and functional government.”

A representative for Kimbal Musk didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

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