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‘You are a liar’: Elon Musk throws down with virtual signaling Mark Cuban over DEI

January 9, 2024 | | Print Article

An ongoing social media spat between billionaires ramped up as accusations of being a “racist” and a “liar” were hurled over DEI.

Monday, a cutesy attempt by former Mavericks owner Mark Cuban to frame himself as “a nice guy” landed as well as stepping on a rake when tech entrepreneur Elon Musk issued his own blunt rebuttal in their continued argument over diversity, equity and inclusion practices. In particular, the renewed argument came as the X owner reacted to a story about the United Airlines training academy, United Aviate Academy, eyeing enrollment of 50% “women and/or people of color.”

“The airline industry can’t find enough qualified pilots even without insane DEI requirements!” explained the SpaceX CEO in reaction to a post that cited Cuban as saying, “DEI does not mean you [don’t] hire on merit. Of course you hire based on merit.”

In response, the “Shark Tank” celebrity attempted to take the high ground by sharing a link to the academy and contending, “This is a training school. Once they graduate, it’s a multi year process to have an OPPORTUNITY to pilot for United…Since I’m a nice guy and want you to be fully informed, I’ll share with you the benefit of 60 seconds I spent looking for how the program works. [By the way], looks like multiple layers of merit based evaluations before they can fly for United.”

“You are a liar,” fired back Musk in brief.

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The rebuttal was hardly the only response from the world’s richest man as earlier he had shared a post from The Rabbit Hole that highlighted Cuban asserting on Monday, “It’s a for profit school. If they want primarily purple people eaters from Mars, it’s their choice.”

This prompted Musk to contend, “Mark Cuban is a racist.”

Later on, having added the title of “(CTO) Chief Troll Officer” to his account bio, the Tesla co-founder supported his claim by sharing video of Cuban from 2014 where he explained how if he saw a black kid in a hoodie on the same side of the street as him at night, he’d cross to the other side to avoid them, “I know I’m prejudiced. I know I’m bigoted in a lot of different ways.”

“This,” declared Musk, “explains Mark Cuban’s ridiculous overcompensation regarding racism. Same thing happened with #MeToo guys who got bust suddenly becoming fake ardent feminists.”

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The debate had picked up where the duo had left off the week prior when Cuban had reacted to Musk stating, “Discrimination on the basis of race, which DEI does, is literally the definition of racism.”

After the virtue-signaling businessman had finished “wokesplaining” the Marxist ideology, Musk had shot back, “Cool, so when should we expect to see a short white/Asian women on the Mavs?”

He harkened back to that Monday by arguing “The only way to prove he is not a racist AND sexist is to put an Asian woman and a white woman on his basketball team!”

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While the self-described free speech absolutist toyed with Cuban, the account Wall Street Silver reacted to the video of self-professed bigotry and said, “It’s just sad watching people get forced into those struggle sessions. He looks like a hostage to the woke crowd, just trying to avoid becoming a target.”

Kevin Haggerty
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