As a white South African currently living in the United States, I am acutely aware of the oversized role played by Elon Musk and several other white men with strong US South African relations to authoritarianism. These include far-right tech billionaire Peter Thiel, who spent his childhood formative years in apartheid South Africa. David Sachs, born in Cape Town by US President Donald Trump, David Sachs. Joel Pollack, a conservative South African-American political commentator who is currently a senior editor at the Breitbart News Network.
I’m not a billionaire and I have no impact on government policies, but these guys and I still have quite a commonality. I was born in apartheid in South Africa along with my mask.Pollak and Sacks, and the system benefited. Like them, I eventually moved to the US. Like Musk, I went to Bell’s Cool or “field school.” Meanwhile, teachers sought to indoctrinate us into Christian nationalism, a white-only political ideology of the apartheid government. Like him, I was a nerd boy who was mercilessly bullied at school.
But I am very different from these guys too. And not because there are billions of people in the bank or they don’t have a direct line to the US president. Unlike Musk, I don’t support racist pseudo-science. Unlike musks and regimes, unlike those of these men serving, I am questioning policies during the apartheid era. And most importantly, I take pride in the achievements and progress of South Africa after apartheid.
In the early 1990s, when South Africa was moving from apartheid to democracy, I worked as a radio journalist for a national broadcasting station in the country. I remember feeling pride and elation across the country, with South Africans of all races and backgrounds lined up to vote in their first democratic election on April 27, 1994. Over the next few years, my colleagues and I have been part of our efforts to transform South African broadcasters from government mouthpieces to real public broadcasters.
When South Africans won the battle for democracy, they faced another battle. This time, we’re talking about the AIDS pandemic. Once again, the country and its people rose to the challenge. Millions of South Africans organized, took them on the streets, demanded access to antiretroviral drugs, and ultimately accessed them. After relentless pressure, the government agreed to commit to treatment. The US government has also agreed to do the right thing and generically fund AIDS drug treatment through the US President’s AIDS Relief Emergency Program (PEPFAR). South Africa is one of the biggest recipients of Pepfar Aid, which received $332.6 million in 2024. This aid saved countless South African lives.
Now, with full support from his billionaire friends for the miserable days of apartheid, Trump cut this fund. The cuts in AIDS treatment came from Trump’s recent executive order stopping US aid to South Africa and providing support and displacement to white South Africans, whom he described as “a victim of unfair racism.” The Trump administration then decided to expel the South African ambassador to the United States, Ebrahim Lasor.
Trump is following Musk’s lead in post-apartheid South Africa branding, a country that is plagued by racism. Musk previously described his birth country as having “racist ownership laws” and accused the government of not stopping what is called “genocide” against white farmers.
What Musk and Trump explain is not the kind of country I know and love.
My South African husband and I moved to the US in 2010. Because I was offered the opportunity to play a role in supporting public health activists internationally through my work at the Open Society Foundation in New York.
We decided this was too exciting opportunity to refuse, but moving from South Africa to the US was not an easy decision. We live a very comfortable life and moving to the US actually meant losing many of the rights and protections we had in South Africa, including excellent labor protection, paid family leave, and the right to get married as a gay couple. (Same-sex marriage will not be legalized nationwide in the United States for another five years.) South Africans of all races also enjoy abortion rights and constitutional rights to health, education and housing.
I became a US citizen in December 2023. It was a bittersweet time. My father, Malcolm, passed away a few days ago. And I had to postpone the postponement of heading to the house for the monument until I was able to get my new US passport. He was a man of faith, a pastor of the congregation church, and gave his body to science. A devout Christian who was affectionate and supportive when I came out as a gay, and even when I told him I was leaving the church, he deeply praised anti-Nazi German opposition Dietrich Bonhofer, urging my brother and me to always have the courage of our beliefs.
Unlike Musk, Tiel, Bag, and Pollak, I have no nostalgia for apartheid. As my father taught me, if I have the courage of my beliefs, when Musk repeatedly makes repeated efforts to revoke the legacy of “racism”, I feel that I must introduce it to international health assistance, for international health assistance, for international health assistance, for international health assistance, for space assistance. Over half a million deaths have been made in South Africa over the next 10 years.
Musk and his super-rich South African-born friend – those who have more money than many of us can guess, working directly with the US president, taking everything away from those who have little or none, so I have to speak up.
Their model is not the model we should follow. There are far better examples in the past and present. Take Jennifer Davis, who helped to build constructive connections between South Africa and the United States based on human rights and justice. Or many members of the Change Coalition, led by organizations such as the US Health Gap and the South African Health Justice Initiative, are currently working together to challenge and turn the back on Trump’s aid. Or millions of people who are motivated and inspired by the values of democracy, social justice, ubuntu, motivated by the idea that we are all connected and responsible for each other, showing up every day to do the necessary work to make the US and South Africa better for all.
Musk and his like-minded friends may now have all the powers, but they are just a small minority. Those who love justice and democracy in South Africa and America have previously won their kind.
The views expressed in this article are the authors themselves and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.