#STAYWOKE

Elon Musk Mocks Antiracist Twitter Initiative

The billionaire shared footage mocking the “#StayWoke” merchandise as others laughed.

Elon Musk appeared to mock an antiracism initiative created by a group of Black Twitter employees late Tuesday. The new Twitter czar posted a video filmed at a closet in Twitter’s San Francisco headquarters full of T-shirts emblazoned with the slogan “#StayWoke.” A man that sounds like Musk can be heard describing the merchandise as others laugh out of shot. “Found in closet at Twitter HQ fr,” Musk captioned the post, along with two crying-laughing emojis. The T-shirts, which started being sold in April 2016, were made by Twitter’s “Blackbirds” group which said that its mission was to “support and promote diversity at Twitter” as well as “create a more inclusive work environment.” In a since-deleted post, Musk followed up the video with a tweet saying the shirts “stem from the Ferguson protests,” referring to the 2014 demonstrations in Missouri after the killing of Black teenager Michael Brown by a white police officer. “Obama’s own DOJ proved this [and] exonerated the cop. ‘Hands up don’t shoot’ was made up. The whole thing was a fiction,” the post read, before Musk deleted the post, instead sharing the DOJ report into Brown’s death. The Justice Department did conclude that officer Darren Wilson shot Brown in self-defense, but also criticized the police and its handling of the subsequent protests.