President Cyril Ramaphosa this week engaged South African-born tech billionaire Elon Musk over the “misinformation” generated about the country.
This, after newly-elected US president Donald Trump threatened to halt aid to SA, saying: “South Africa is confiscating land, and treating certain classes of people very badly.
“The United States won’t stand for it, we will act. Also, I will be cutting off all future funding to South Africa until a full investigation of this situation has been completed!”
Ramaphosa on Monday responded to Trump, dispelling the allegations, saying SA is a constitutional democracy and government has not confiscated any land.
Musk then commented on Ramaphosa’s post on his social media platform X, saying: “Why do you have openly racist ownership laws?”
In a statement yesterday, the presidency said: “Yesterday, 3 February 2025, president @CyrilRamaphosa spoke to @ElonMusk on issues of misinformation and distortions about South Africa.
“In the process, the president reiterated South Africa’s constitutionally embedded values of the respect for the rule of law, justice, fairness and equality.”
Musk, who is now part of Trump’s inner circle, is known for his key roles in space company SpaceX and electric vehicle company Tesla. Other involvements include ownership of X Corp, the company that operates social media platform X (formerly known as Twitter).
Last year, Trump appointed Musk, who is the world’s richest man, in his government to lead the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) together with Vivek Ramaswamy.
DOGE is a temporary, newly-created government department in the new administration.
Ramaphosa’s latest engagement with Musk comes as South Africans are still waiting for the deployment of SpaceX’s Starlink satellite internet service in the country.
One of the requirements for licence approval is that SpaceX must be 30% owned by historically disadvantaged groups, which has caused mixed reaction in SA.
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