- By Surarika Das
- Fri, 24 Jul 2026 03:53 PM (IST)
- Source:JND
- Musk denies racism, citing wife's half-Indian heritage.
- Mentions son named after Indian physicist, Strider Sekhar.
- Claims Tesla offers senior roles to people of all races.
Tesla And SpaceX CEO Elon Musk has once again wrapped himself in controversy after he denied that he is a racist, claiming his wife is half Indian. In an interview for the Economist, the Tesla owner claimed one cannot label him a "racist," as his wife has Indian roots and the couple has four children together.
Elon Musk’s wife, Shivon Zilis, is an Artificial Intelligence (AI) executive and the former director of operations at Neuralink. While her mother is of Indian origin, her father was born in Canada. The couple has four kids.
Son Named After An Indian
In the interview with The Economist, the host told Musk, “People say that you’re a racist." The Tesla boss directly rejected the claims, saying, “My partner is half-Indian. I have four children with her; one of them was named after a famous Indian physicist."
One of Musk’s sons is named Strider Sekhar, after Strider, Aragorn’s alias in JRR Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings, and Sekhar, after the Indian-American astrophysicist Subramanyan Chandrashekar.
Brushing off the “racist” claims, the Tesla owner then clarified that his company offers senior executive roles to people of “all races." “So I would say I’m not a racist. If you look at people that are employed at my companies, we have senior executives of all races. I don’t think there is any racism there."
‘Characterisation Of Far Right Is Misleading": Musk
The world’s wealthiest man then explained that what he supported was secure borders, safe cities, and sensible spending. “Which of those are the far-right fringe? The characterisation of the far right… is false and misleading and nonsense,” claimed Elon Musk.
However, the host continued to probe into the racist allegations that follow Musk online. If Musk doesn’t consider himself racist, then does he consider himself anti-Muslim? she asked. Before reacting, Musk took a moment to pause and reflect.
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“I’m against having people coming to a country with antithetical views. If you have a large and rapidly growing group of people whose beliefs are antithetical to Western beliefs… at some point there will be a reckoning. I’m against rape and murder… and the imposition of rules and laws that are contrary to what we’ve come to accept in the West,” Musk said.