Elon Musk has a new fixation, and it's not rockets, robots, or crypto—it's Helen of Troy. Writing for the Guardian, Arwa Mahdawi reports that the billionaire has spent the past week railing on X about Christopher Nolan's upcoming film adaptation of The Odyssey, zeroing in on the decision to cast Oscar winner Lupita Nyong'o as Helen. Mahdawi notes that in January, when the casting of Nyong'o casting was still a rumor, Musk began griping about the project. After Nolan confirmed it in a May 12 Time interview, the criticism escalated. Musk has since echoed and boosted posts from right-wing commentators who say a Black actress as the legendary beauty is a betrayal of "Western civilization," despite Helen being a character from a myth and not a historical figure. "Thanks for the hot take ... but kindly get a grip," Mahdawi eye-rolls at Musk's extended grievance.
The world's richest man has backed posts calling Nolan a "coward" for not choosing a white actress and amplifying claims that the casting is part of a broader left-wing effort to erode Western culture. The Odyssey tirade fits a larger Musk pattern, Mahdawi notes: A Guardian analysis found that Musk used his platform on 26 of January's 31 days to warn about a supposed decline of white people, reference "race science," or boost anti-immigrant conspiracy content. "If you stripped Elon Musk's name off of these [posts] and showed them to me, I would think that this was a white supremacist," said Heidi Beirich of the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism. More here, as well as a take from Nyong'o herself.
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