Elon Musk Promoted a Racist Theory About the Netflix Series 'Adolescence'

Elon Musk has never been one to fact-check the information he shares on his X (formerly Twitter) page. In fact, it sometimes seems like he is actively interested in promoting misinformation, regardless of what it's about. Following the success of the Netflix series Adolescence, which follows a boy of 13 who is accused of murdering one of his classmates in the U.K., Musk felt the need to promote a theory about the show.

Following Musk's promotion of the theory, many want to know exactly what it said and why one of the show's writers has come forward to address it. Here's what we know.

Musk's tweet was a promotion of a theory that suggests that the crime in Adolescence was based on a real crime committed by a Black boy. The post, which Musk reposted with the comment "wow," claims that the show is based on a “real-life case such as the Southport murderer," and further suggested that, by making the perpetrator a white boy, the show amounted to “anti-white propaganda.”

Although race is not irrelevant to the story of Adolescence, the show is much more about a modern crisis of masculinity among young men who spend much of their time following toxic online role models. Musk might know that had he ever watched the series, and he might even learn something from the way it depicts the brain of a young man who has had his entire existence pickled in the misogyny of the internet.

On The News Agents podcast, one of the show's writers, Jack Thorne, rebutted the claim that the show was based on a real case.

“There is no part of this that’s based on a true story, not one single part," he said, adding that he had told plenty of real-life stories in his life and knew how delicately they had to be handled.

“It’s absurd to say that [knife crime] is only committed by Black boys. It’s absurd. It’s not true. And history shows a lot of cases of kids from all races committing these crimes," he continued. "We’re not making a point about race with this. We are making a point about masculinity. We’re trying to get inside a problem. We’re not saying this is one thing or another, we’re saying that this is about boys.”

The show has broken ratings records for Netflix, and its innovative, single-take style has earned it plenty of praise from critics as well. Although Adolescence is not a show set in the world of politics, it is nonetheless very much a show about all the ways raising a young boy feels almost impossible today.

Musk, who has promoted his fair share of masculine-centered propaganda in his time, is a somewhat ironic person to be promoting this particular theory. The show is not anti-white in the way the tweet he shared suggests. What it is, though, is opposed to some of the people in Musk's orbit who have suggested through their online lives that there is only one right way to be a man.