British-Indian author Salman Rushdie on Monday slammed tech billionaire Elon Musk and said that the he would love the billionaire to be the first man on Mars.
In an interview to El Pais at the Hay festival, Rusdie criticised Musk for creating a discourse of the extreme-right.
“Elon Musk doesn’t defend free expression. His social network curates the discourse of the extreme-right. Appropriating a noble cause — such as freedom of expression — when what you really do is the opposite is very dishonest. I’m not a fan of Mr. Musk. And I would love for him to be the first man on Mars,” Musk said.
Rushdie also recalled his meeting with Musk a decade back in Los Angeles.
“If he likes it so much, then let him go. I once met him, in Los Angeles, 10 years ago. And he said that it would take seven years to get to Mars. Seven years have already passed, and I really want him to leave,” he added.
During the conversation, Rushdie also attacked the US President Donald Trump’s crackdown on illegal immigration and said that “cultural values like tolerance or empathy have lost so much support.”
Emphasising that he is a double migrant, from India to England, from England to the United States, Rushdie said that he has “always tried to celebrate the more positive side of that” and that “all that migration feeds culture.”
“Isn’t the United States a nation of immigrants? Apart from Native Americans, everyone is a migrant. That’s been the case since the founding fathers. The great American myth is now said to be bad, evil. Even Elon Musk is from South Africa,” said Rushdie.
Rushdie survived a stabbing attack in August 2022 and recently appeared for a hearing of the ongoing trial. During the hearing that took place on February 11, Rushdie removed his glasses to show his blind right eye.
Rushdie recalled how the event had barely begun when he noticed someone rushing towards him from the right.
“I only saw him at the last minute,” he said. “I was aware of someone wearing dark clothes and a black face mask. I was very struck by his eyes, which were dark and seemed very ferocious to me.”