How does it just keep getting worse?

Fuelling the Fire

Instead of mourning the devastating destruction and death that's befallen the city of Los Angeles due to raging wildfires this week, Elon Musk has taken to his far-right hate speech incubator X to blame the fires on — wait for it — diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs.

In other words, Musk is using unabashedly racist lies to pin the climate change-fueled disaster on minorities.

"They prioritized DEI over saving lives and homes," Musk tweeted. He was responding to a post by the anti-LGBTQ+ hate account Libs of TikTok, which claimed that the LA Fire Department ensured its employees were "racially diverse enough" — something that was then contorted into racist vitriol in Musk's twisted mind.

It's an appalling — and unsurprising — development, highlighting Musk's well-documented descent into sociopathic and extremist thinking, inspired by the right-wing cadre he's surrounded himself with on his social media platform.

Racist Antics

We won't waste our time to tell you how incredibly bigoted and misled Musk's claim is. As Jezebel points out, severe budget cuts have led to a terrifying shortage of firefighters in LA, motivated by diverting funds to the police department. Worse yet, the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) has forced imprisoned prisoners to battle the blazes for as little as $5.80 per day — an atrocious glimpse of a climate change-fueled dystopia in which there are countless reasonable things to blame besides mild diversity efforts.

Other users on Musk's X spread fear-mongering claims about "looters in LA" in the aftermath of the devastating fire, accompanied by AI-generated slop.

It's far from the first time Musk has spewed racist lies to rail against DEI practices. Last year, civil rights groups were horrified after he endorsed a tweet suggesting Black students at Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) have lower IQs and shouldn't become pilots.

Musk has also baselessly claimed that "DEI is just another word for racism."

In short, blaming the devastating wildfires, which have taken the lives of at least ten people, on racially diverse hiring practices is only the latest sign that Musk has completely lost the plot.

And considering Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg has also announced new measures to increase hate speech on Facebook, we should expect more hurtful conspiracy theories to run rampant on social media.

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