Elon Musk: the Welfare Queen in a Technoking Suit
From apartheid emeralds to corporate welfare, inside the grift that built a “genius.”
For Animal 15.
Hey, Slick!
I don’t normally like to think about “Where will you be when you read my article?” But this time, I have a recommendation: this article will be best enjoyed post-coffee on the morning after an authentic Thai curry.
I also don’t usually punch down, but... when the so-called richest, smartest man alive turns out to be a government leech, a fraud, and a sci-fi LARPer with the emotional maturity of a Reddit mod, it’s hard to resist.
For years, Elon Musk has been marketed as a visionary, genius, and self-made tech king—the man who will take us to Mars, solve climate change, and make AI work for us. In reality? He’s a welfare queen, a grifter propped up by taxpayer money and cultish fanboys, and a thin-skinned egomaniac who spends more time shitposting than innovating.
Why does this matter? Because Musk is not just another billionaire tech bro—he’s embedded in global defense, infrastructure, and policy. His incompetence isn’t just funny—it’s dangerous.
This is the first part of a two-piece takedown, peeling back the carefully constructed myth to reveal the insecure fraud beneath. By the time we’re done here, you’ll never look at Musk the same way again.
But for now, hold your breath: every time you think we’ve hit the bottom… you’ll find him grabbing a shovel.
I. The Villain Origin Story: A Family Tree Rooted in Blood Money and Nazism
Musk wants you to believe he’s Tony Stark. The reality is closer to a Bond villain origin story—if the villain was insecure, wildly overhyped, and built his empire on government handouts and fraud.
The man loves a good narrative. In his telling, he’s the ultimate self-made genius who willed his empire into existence through sheer intellect and perseverance. But as with most things Muskian, reality is far less romantic—and far more damning. His empire isn’t built on genius. It’s built on a lifelong pattern of evasion, deception, and outright fraud.
And the origin story? It starts with apartheid emeralds, ideological extremism, and a family of predators who saw no issue profiting off suffering.
Dirty Money & the Emerald Mine Myth
Musk built his empire from nothing—just a little bit of genius, grit, and sleeping on a factory floor, right? That’s the story he tells. The real story, though?
His father, Errol Musk, casually admitted that their emerald mine in apartheid-era South Africa was lucrative enough that “we had so much money we couldn’t even close our safe” and that teenage Elon walked around with emeralds in his pockets.
For years, Musk vehemently denied the mine’s existence. Then, when too many receipts surfaced, he pivoted: Okay, fine, but it wasn’t that profitable. Except, by his own father’s admission, it bankrolled his family’s lavish lifestyle—and likely helped fund Elon’s early business ventures.
You know, Slick, I can’t help but wonder: Who was working those mines? Under what conditions?
The answers would probably make you and I vomit, Slick. But they would make grandpa Musk proud.
Joshua Haldeman, the Technocratic Racist
Elon Musk presents himself as a free-thinking visionary, a self-made genius who challenges the establishment. But his roots tell a different story—one of inherited ideology, privilege, and authoritarian aspirations. The Musk dynasty didn’t start in Silicon Valley; it began with a man who wanted to replace democracy with an unelected scientific dictatorship.
Joshua Haldeman, Musk’s maternal grandfather, was a radical supporter of Technocracy, Inc., a fringe authoritarian movement in the 1930s that sought to abolish democracy and replace it with rule by an unelected “expert class.”
Haldeman wasn’t just an eccentric engineer—he was a white supremacist and an antisemite who believed in a North American version of the Reich: the Technate of North America.
He actively opposed Jewish immigration, spread antisemitic conspiracies about global control, and promoted a white-dominated “rational order.” These ideas aren’t relics of the past—they echo through the rhetoric of today’s far-right tech elite, including Musk’s own musings on AI-run governance.
When his activities faced scrutiny in Canada, he fled—not to any random country, but to Apartheid South Africa, a state built on “scientific” racial segregation. Just a few years earlier, South Africa had launched an international propaganda campaign branding itself as “A Paradise for White People.” Haldeman didn’t just choose exile—he chose an explicitly white supremacist state to continue his vision of a technocratic utopia.
The short version, Slick? Grandpa Musk was a Nazi who fled to South Africa because Canada wasn’t having any of it.
So, not long ago, the White House said Violence should only be condemned, never encouraged or joked about. It also said, Turns out that jokes are way less funny if people don't know the context and the delivery is in plain text. So personally, I would never encourage anyone to do anything like pissing on a grave, of course. But—Joshua Norman Haldeman is apparently buried in Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada.
II. Errol Musk: Predator, Racist… and the Blueprint for Elon
The rotten apple doesn’t fall far from the rotten tree.
Errol Musk is not just a violent racist who has openly bragged about the money he made from apartheid-era South Africa and describes it as a golden age. He is also a literal predator. Multiple family members have accused him of abuse, and I tend to believe them since they’re accusing a man who has FATHERED A CHILD WITH HIS OWN STEPDAUGHTER—whom he raised since she was FOUR YEARS OLD.
And then a second child, of course.
Musk has never condemned or distanced himself from his father’s actions—he only evades and deflects.
Or maybe it’s family, and these things are hard, and expecting Musk Junior to stand up to daddy is just too much... I don’t know, Slick—if your father had a child with his stepdaughter, the girl he raised since she was four, would you need ‘media pressure’ to publicly condemn him? Would you write those kinds of tweets and send him money?
The parallels between father and son aren’t subtle.
Both have a pattern of mistreating women: Grimes has described Musk as abusive. His first wife, Justine, wrote extensively about his controlling behavior. His own daughter legally changed her name to escape him.
Both operate on a sense of inherited entitlement. Errol believed he was above accountability; Musk does too.
And both rewrite history when confronted. Errol brags about his wealth, then downplays it. Musk follows the same playbook.
Musk has spent his whole life crafting his image of a “bad boy genius.” But his real legacy is one of privilege, cruelty, and pathological dishonesty. When this origin story became inconvenient, Musk tried to gaslight the public, claiming there was no emerald mine—despite years of evidence to the contrary.
Errol Musk had a child with his own stepdaughter, a deeply disturbing act—Elon never condemned it. He claims he is estranged from his father but had no issues taking daddy’s money for business ventures, including his first one, Zip2. And now he still financially supports his pappa.
Take a predator. Mix it with a Nazi. Shake well. What do you get?
III. A Pattern of Evasion: Musk’s Lifelong Dance Around the Truth
When cornered, Elon Musk doesn’t fight—he squirms.
The Musk family fortune wasn’t built on revolutionary ideas or technical brilliance. It was built on exploitation, privilege, and straight-up fraud. Musk has spent years obfuscating the truth about his father’s emerald mine in apartheid South Africa.
First, he denied its existence outright.
Then, when old interviews resurfaced, he admitted it existed but downplayed its significance.
Later, his father, Errol Musk, contradicted him: “We had so much money from the mine, we couldn’t close our safe.”
Eventually, Musk pivoted to the shrugging billionaire defense: “So what?”
The real question isn’t whether the mine existed (it did) or whether it made his family rich (it did). It’s: who was working in those mines? Who was being exploited to fund the Musk family's early wealth?
Musk wants to claim the underdog mantle, but he was born into a family of colonizers and profiteers. And instead of reckoning with that, he lies, distorts, and moves on—just as he always does.
A Career Built on Lies
Musk’s pattern of gaslighting the public goes far beyond his family history. Over and over again, he shifts the narrative when reality contradicts his self-mythology:
The Emerald Mine: “It never existed.” Then, “Okay, it existed, but it wasn’t that profitable.” And eventually “Well, actually, it bankrolled my brother’s first company.”
Nepotism? “I started from nothing…” except his first startup was bankrolled by family money.
Grimes & Abuse Allegations? “She’s crazy.” Says the man with strong family values who had her begging to see her own son.
His Daughter Changing Her Name? Silence.
Taking Credit for Other People’s Work: “I coded PayPal.” No, Slick: he was fired from PayPal—for making bad technical decisions.
Tesla’s self-driving is here! And so were all the fake demos that misled investors.
Optimus, the humanoid robot? Just a guy in a suit. No, really.
Cybertruck? Bulletproof! Until the windows shattered in a live demo.
Musk never takes responsibility. When something goes wrong, it’s never his fault:
The company was badly run.
The employees were lazy.
The media is out to get him.
The SEC is corrupt.
The excuses never stop.
And his cult-like fanbase eats it up.
Musk’s greatest skill isn’t engineering or business—it’s myth-making. And every time reality threatens to puncture his self-image, he dodges, pivots, and lies.
But remember the shovel? Maybe this weird new muscle is also coming from all the digging that’s happening when Musk paints himself as a protector of children, yet defends racists, predators, and alleged child traffickers (apparently known in those circles under their pseudonyms “Big Balls” & “nullptr”) inside his companies.
IV. Dirty Money, Bigger Grift: Musk’s Con at Scale
Musk didn’t just inherit dirty money. His entire career has been built on it.
The Great Tesla Bailout
SolarCity, a financial disaster run by Musk’s cousins, was spiraling toward bankruptcy.
Musk bailed it out—not with his money, but with Tesla’s money.
He forced Tesla investors to buy the failing company, saving his family at the expense of Tesla’s shareholders.
This wasn’t a business move. It was financial engineering, pure and simple—for his and his family’s benefit, and at everyone else’s loss.
PayPal, Crypto, and Money Laundering
PayPal was never about “democratizing money.” It was a massive, unregulated money-laundering machine.
Musk saw the same opportunity in crypto, pumping and dumping Dogecoin to profit off his followers’ gullibility.
How is this different from traditional financial fraud?
It isn’t.
The only difference? Musk has never been held accountable.
The Saudi & Russian Oligarch Connections
Musk has spent years LARPing as a rogue billionaire, an independent visionary above the corrupt forces of the world.
But look past the Twitter tantrums, and you’ll see the same old billionaire story—backroom deals with dictators, shady oligarchs, and a growing dependence on authoritarian states.
Starlink is one of Musk’s most powerful assets—it controls global communication infrastructure in a way that no private entity should.
Yet, Musk has significant Saudi backing, raising serious concerns about how much control foreign interests have over his empire. Here’s the question no one is asking: What happens when a U.S. military asset is financially dependent on authoritarian regimes?
Meanwhile, Tesla is increasingly financially tied to China—its Shanghai Gigafactory is Musk’s most profitable, meaning his business empire is literally dependent on the CCP’s goodwill.
And here’s that shovel again… Musk’s early Ukraine War posturing wasn’t just naïve, it was highly suspect. His bizarre attempt at a “peace deal” conveniently aligned with Russian strategic interests.
So did his shutting off Starlink for the Ukrainian army when they went on the offensive—giving Russia a massive strategic advantage—after a call with the Kremlin.
His business ties to Russian oligarchs remain murky, but some of his biggest deals—including Starlink expansion—raise serious questions about his true allegiances.
Musk loves to posture as a free speech warrior, but the reality is simple:
He’s financially beholden to authoritarian regimes.
He can’t afford to anger the Saudis because they bankrolled his empire.
He can’t afford to anger Russia because of… well, we don’t even know. But the smoke is there.
He can’t afford to anger China because Tesla depends on them to stay profitable.
Musk isn’t a rogue billionaire—he’s an asset, whether he realizes it or not.
And his self-made myth?
It’s about as bulletproof as a Cybertruck’s windows.
V. Fragile Ego of the Fake Genius: The Man-Child Behind the Meme Lord
For all his bluster about being a visionary, Musk is, at his core, just another insecure rich kid trying to prove he’s the smartest guy in the room.
This is a man who spends billions shaping his public image but crumbles the moment someone questions his genius.
A man who claims to be an innovator but has never meaningfully contributed to any of the industries he takes credit for.
A man who desperately wants to be a sci-fi hero but is, at best, a B-movie villain with daddy issues.
And nothing exposes that better than his fragile ego, his fake achievements, and his desperate attempts to cement himself in history.
The Richest Man in the World Who Had to Lie About a Video Game
Most billionaires don’t feel the need to convince the world they’re great at gaming.
But Musk? Different story.
For years, he claimed that as a kid, he coded and published his own video game, Blastar—a true sign of his genius.
Except…
The game wasn’t an original creation—it was just a basic example copied from a programming book.
His fans held it up as proof he was a coding prodigy.
In reality, he was just a kid who modified some existing code and got lucky that a magazine printed it.
And because Musk can never let things go, he even lied about how good he was at Diablo III.
Grimes—his then-partner—had to publicly defend his gaming skills like a mom telling the coach to put her kid in the game.
The man could buy Blizzard if he wanted, but instead, he needs to convince the world that he’s good at Diablo. And at a few other video games, because that’s, like, really important.
That’s the Musk playbook: take credit, exaggerate, and, when necessary, just straight-up lie.
Burning Man: The Commodification of Counterculture
Elon Musk loves to LARP as a rogue visionary, a rebel genius shaking up the status quo. And for years, Burning Man was his favourite stage for playing that role.
The event—founded on principles like radical self-reliance, decommodification, and communal effort—became, for Musk, both a personal playground and a corporate launchpad. In a supreme irony, he used Burning Man’s anti-commercial ethos to debut Tesla in 2007. His crew rolled onto the playa with a Roadster prototype, pitching it as the perfect machine for the apocalypse—a car that could survive and thrive in a post-civilization wasteland.
It wasn’t just a stunt. Burning Man, with its techno-futurist elite and transhumanist undertones, was the perfect market for Musk’s mythos. He wasn’t just selling an EV—he was selling the Muskian dream: a sleek, sci-fi future where the chosen few escape the dying world, leaving the rest behind.
Armed Goons and Corporate Camps
For all his posturing about Burning Man’s culture, Musk treated it like his own private VIP lounge. In later years, he and his billionaire peers retreated to luxury camps, complete with personal chefs, climate-controlled domes, and an army of underpaid staffers assembling their post-scarcity utopias.
And when the unwashed masses got too close? Musk brought security.
One year, Musk’s camp hired armed guards to enforce a “no-photo” policy, ensuring that no one could document how the “visionary of the people” was living like a monarch in a city that explicitly rejects hierarchy. If you wandered too close to the Tesla king’s domain, you weren’t just breaking the ethos of radical inclusion—you were trespassing.
The Burning Man Ethos vs. The Musk Reality
Musk’s Burning Man phase is a microcosm of his wider fraud:
He poses as an underdog while wielding corporate and state power.
He preaches anti-authoritarianism while siccing security forces on anyone who gets too close.
He claims to reject commercialization but uses counterculture movements as marketing tools.
He sells himself as a pioneer while riding on the backs of actual innovators.
It’s fitting that Musk loved Burning Man. The event, like his brand, became a hollowed-out spectacle, a place where billionaires cosplayed as radical free spirits while living in gated, fully serviced compounds. In the end, Musk didn’t absorb the lessons of Burning Man—he just turned it into another grift.
But maybe it was never about the principles. Maybe, like everything else in his life, it was just about the optics1.
VI. Emperor of Fraud: Overpromising, Underdelivering, and Flat-Out Scamming
Musk loves to call himself a visionary—the man shaping the future of humanity. But what has he actually delivered?
A trail of broken promises, failed projects, fake demos, and shameless fraud.
Let’s talk about the con.
The Sci-Fi LARP of a Billionaire Who Wants to Be Cool
Musk wants to be remembered as a pioneering genius, a mix of Iron Man, Wernher von Braun, and Steve Jobs.
But what’s actually happening?
He’s a guy who read too much bad sci-fi as a kid, slapped a “cool billionaire” veneer on it, and tried to sell it as reality.
There’s the “Mars Colony” Fantasy: supposedly, Musk’s ultimate dream is to make humanity a multi-planetary species. But Musk’s Mars Colony isn’t Star Trek—it’s a corporate-run indentured servitude scheme wrapped in a “humanity-saving” sales pitch.
He’s literally suggested that people would have to pay off their ticket to Mars by working for him in a corporate-controlled space colony. Think about that for a second, Slick: it’s not Carl Sagan or early NASA love of science and exploration. It’s a sci-fi dystopia.
How about the Starship Hype? Musk claims he’ll put humans on Mars “soon.”
He said 2024, and… SpaceX has yet to launch a single Starship that doesn’t explode. The issue isn’t that Starship fails; failure is part of rocket development. It’s that Musk lies—repeatedly—about how close they are.
Hyperloop was plainly a scam. Nothing happened, for all the talk of a futuristic alternative to public transit. What it did do is kill real transit projects while funneling money into Musk’s pocket.
Keep digging, Elon! The Boring Company “Tunnels”, sold as a revolutionary underground transit system, never achieved anything. But really, we’re talking about single-lane Tesla traffic jams underground.
Faster, SOFTIE! Optimus, the “Humanoid Robot”, hailed as Tesla’s cutting-edge AI achievement. What was it at launch? A guy in a suit. And yet… the audience still clapped.
SCHNELLER, ELON! The Cybertruck Disaster! Marketed as “bulletproof”, with windows that shattered during the live demo—despite being thrown by the weakest man on Earth!
You know what, Slick? That might have been the most honest Musk moment ever.
Every time, though, it’s the same pattern:
Overhype a half-baked idea.
Promise it’s right around the corner.
Collect billions in investor hype money.
Delay, delay, delay.
Quietly walk back the original claims.
Blame someone else when it inevitably fails.
But could you just, I don’t know, leave the monkeys alone?
Or maybe—no, actually, PLEASE—try on yourself first?
Neuralink might be the future of brain tech… or a horror show. Musk claims the brain-computer interface will merge us with AI and cure neurological diseases. The reality? Failed trials, horrific animal deaths, and zero proof that it works. Musk’s company killed at least 1,500 animals, including monkeys that self-mutilated, suffered infections, and died in agony from botched implants.
Employees raised alarms about reckless, rushed testing—but Musk demanded they “go faster.”
“Yes, that is a very good idea, Elon. Let’s exterminate the monkeys, and fast.”
-Elon’s moral judgement.
And now? He’s moving to human trials.
So yes, try on yourself first, Elon.
Animal 15, and Animals 1 to 1500 and counting—I am so, so deeply sorry for what Elon Musk did to you, and so, so sad to think he and I are the same species.
You can lie about tunnels, rockets, and bulletproof glass. But when the lie is drilled into someone’s skull? That’s another level of reckless.
Elon, please leave the monkeys alone. I get it—being raised by pedo-nazis (or the very existence of pedo-nazis, for that matter) does have a way of making you hate humanity that I can’t quite describe.
But what the heck did the monkeys do to you?! Did they intimidate you? Did the monkeys bully you as a child? Look at you the wrong way? Or did they outsmart you one too many times?
The Fake Genius: Taking Credit for Other People’s Work
For someone who insists he’s the brains behind every company he touches, Musk has an uncanny habit of showing up after the real work is done and slapping his name on the project.
He didn’t found Tesla: he bought his way in, then sued the real founders to call himself a co-founder.
He didn’t invent PayPal. He was fired from X.com for making bad technical decisions; the real engineers rebuilt it into PayPal.
He didn’t design SpaceX’s rockets. Aerospace engineers like Tom Mueller did.
He didn’t write the code for Zip2. He hired engineers and let them do the work.
And yet, his fanboys will swear up and down that Musk is a technical genius.
The truth?
Musk is an elite hype-man, not an engineer. He’s Steve Jobs without the taste, the intelligence, or the charisma.
He doesn’t innovate.
He doesn’t build.
He lies, takes credit for smarter people’s work, and sells the illusion that he’s the mastermind behind everything.
VII. The Biggest Welfare Queen on Earth
Musk loves to call people lazy and entitled.
He insists he’s the ultimate self-made billionaire, a hardcore capitalist who pulled himself up by his bootstraps.
Except… He’s the biggest corporate welfare queen alive.
SpaceX wouldn’t exist without NASA money (over $15 billion in government contracts). Starlink survives on defense contracts; the same “free speech absolutist” who claims to be independent and rails against the Deep State relies on the U.S. military to fund his projects.
Tesla was saved by a $465 million U.S. government loan. Musk claims he “never needed” government help—but without that bailout, Tesla would have died. And without the carbon subsidies, it’s not profitable, and would long have gone bankrupt.
His companies benefit from billions in government subsidies, tax breaks, and grants.
He even admits to taking government money while calling for its elimination. Yes, of course, Musk has heavily, repeatedly criticized subsidies while demanding them for himself (and building entire companies off of them).
He’s not a visionary—he’s a glorified contractor who figured out how to privatize the space industry while making taxpayers foot the bill.
VIII. The Eternal Victim: Musk vs. Accountability
Despite all his money, power, and influence, Musk still sees himself as an underdog.
Why?
Because the moment someone calls him out on his failures, he melts down.
Regulators hold Tesla accountable?
“They’re corrupt.”Journalists report on his failed projects?
“Fake news.”Employees complain about abuse or racism in his companies?
“Woke nonsense.” And he sends private security companies to reign it in.His own daughter changes her name to escape him?
Si-lence.
It’s never his fault.
The world is just unfair.
The media is biased.
His critics are all just haters.
For a man who claims to be the smartest person alive, he sure spends a lot of time whining about being misunderstood.
IX. Musk, Unmasked
Musk isn’t a genius. He isn’t self-made. He isn’t even a good businessman.
Strip away the hype, the myth, the sci-fi branding, and what’s left?
A fraudulent grifter who got lucky, a government contractor who pretends to be a renegade visionary, an insecure rich kid playing with toys he doesn’t understand.
And under normal circumstances, this is where the story would end.
The overhyped billionaire gets exposed, loses public favor, fades into irrelevance.
But Musk isn’t just another tech scammer.
Because what do you do when a man like this—dishonest, reckless, unaccountable—has his hands on the gears of global power?
When he can control the battlefield with a satellite connection?
When he can shut down internet access in a war zone—because he felt like it?
When he manipulates governments, courts, and public discourse while crying about "free speech"?
When he’s privatizing the public sphere, reengineering law enforcement, and embedding himself into defense and surveillance systems?
When a man like this isn’t just running satellites and shaping public discourse—but wiring himself into your brain?
This isn’t about some overhyped car salesman anymore.
This is about power. About control. About the future we’re being forced into without our consent.
This isn’t a tech story anymore. It’s a power story. And Musk’s power is a threat.
That’s what we’ll expose in Part 2.
Because Musk’s biggest lie isn’t that he’s a genius or a visionary—it’s that he’s on our side. Animal 15 deserved better, and so do all of us.
Until then,
Stay Slick. And remember Animal 15.
I don’t think it should take nearly as much time and emotional labour to research and write about the richest man in the world, who is not only in the US government but also—and again, Slick, you can’t make this up—nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize.
And I don’t think it should be paywalled, either. If you want, thank you for supporting me, and if you can’t, thank you for reading.
Also, Fuck You, Burning Man Organization, for having absolutely nothing to say about any of this—while Musk and other tech oligarchs treat the playa like their personal VIP lounge—but somehow finding the time to roll out tiered tickets, an Instagram broadcast channel, and enough hype marketing to make Coachella blush. Congratulations on completing your full transformation into the least radical event and project in all of history, and Fuck You.
Not your burn—YOU.
Thank you for all your research and casting a light on all the dangerous facets of this power thirsty garbage. I literally cried at the monkey part. The lack of humanity and empathy is profoundly disturbing and worrying. He needs to be stopped.
It is like the scene in the Life of Brian. The crowds are clamoring outside Brian's house. "He's not a hero. He has been a very naughty boy," says his mom.