As California Burns, Elon Musk & Right-Wing Grifters Amplify Bigoted ‘DEI’ Lies

Where many once turned to Twitter for fast updates on disasters like the Los Angeles wildfires, now, thanks to Musk, they’re largely seeing posts blaming female and nonwhite firefighters.

By Kylie Cheung  |  January 9, 2025 | 1:14pm
Photo: Getty Images In Depth
As California Burns, Elon Musk & Right-Wing Grifters Amplify Bigoted ‘DEI’ Lies

Since Tuesday, firestorms have ravaged Southern California, thanks to extremely dry weather and bursts of high-speed winds. By early Thursday, the Palisades fire consumed more than 17,000 acres and spread to Santa Monica, while a fire across Eaton County burned through over 10,000 acres to Pasadena; more and more counties are being impacted by the hour. As homes, schools, and everything in the path of fire burns, tens of thousands of Californians are trying to follow evacuation orders and seek shelter. But where many once turned to social media platforms like Twitter for reliable real-time updates, that’s become nearly impossible under Elon Musk’s ownership. 

Users are sharing screenshots showing that the top visible posts when they search for updates about the wildfires are baseless, right-wing conspiracy theories blaming the fires on diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs. The racist, sexist lies have been amplified by some of the most visible figures on Twitter, like Musk, professional transphobe Matt Walsh, and Libs of TikTok, a far-right influencer whose anti-LGBTQ lies have led to bomb threats against elementary schools. Pretty much none of the vile posts are worth repeating.

i’m kind of amazed at how this is just the crudest, most obvious n****rbaiting you can imagine. “the people you don’t like, yeah, they are responsible for everything bad.” and it works!

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— jamelle (@jamellebouie.net) January 8, 2025 at 8:04 PM


“They prioritized DEI over saving lives and homes,” Musk wrote in a post quote-tweeting a conspiracy theory about Los Angeles firefighters. In other posts, he argued against any evidence that climate disaster is driving the fires, instead blaming diversity programs. Reminder that, within a matter of days, Musk stands to be one of the closest advisers to the incoming-President Trump.

The goal is, obviously, to obfuscate the real causes of these disasters: man-made climate change; lawmakers who refuse to act because they’re bought off by the oil lobby; and the defunding of public resources like fire departments, to name just a few, and instead blame marginalized people.

According to some of the posts being shared and then artificially boosted by Musk and his ilk, the drastic shortage in firefighters is driven by DEI programs that turn away white, male firefighters. Of course, there’s no evidence for this whatsoever save for the purest possible distillation of racism and hatred; it’s all right-wing, culture war bullshit. In reality, the shortage of firefighters is driven partly by budget cuts in order to divert more funding to the LAPD. The shortage of firefighters is so dire that nearly 400 are actually incarcerated people making as little as $5 a day. Nonetheless, the conspiracy theorists being amplified by Musk want us to believe that homeless people and female firefighters are the enemy.

And unfortunately, just as the wildfires began to rage earlier this week, Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg, who owns Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp, announced the end of official fact-checking on these platforms. Conspiracy theories will now run even more rampant, at a time when disinformation could quickly cost lives.

People keep telling me that X is a better platform to follow the LA Count fires on and, well, these are the top hits on the top trending topic

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— Jonathan M. Katz (@katz.theracket.news) January 8, 2025 at 10:26 PM

Wildfire season in Southern California was once contained to summer and early fall; wildfires like this in January would have been unthinkable even a few years ago, but climate scientists warn this week that wildfire season will now be year-round.

At least five people have been killed in the fires, while others have seen everything they own turned to ash. What’s even more terrifying is that, as these disasters inevitably continue, our digital ecosystem bought and owned by right-wing billionaires will be cesspools for vile disinformation, drowning out actual life-saving information and resources.

 
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