The billionaire’s New Year prediction has arrived amid the conflict in Ukraine and ahead of a contentious election in the US
FILE – Elon Musk reacts during an in-conversation event with Britain’s Prime Minister Rishi Sunak in London, England, November 2, 2023 © AP / Kirsty Wigglesworth
SpaceX CEO Elon Musk has predicted that 2024 will be “even more crazy” than the preceding four years. Musk was responding to a follower wishing for “a normal year.”
“Can we just have a normal year in 2024?” an anonymous pundit known as ‘Wall Street Silver’ tweeted on New Year’s Eve. “Don’t we deserve that after four years of crazy?”
“2024 is gonna be even more crazy is my prediction,” Musk responded on Monday.
Musk did not predict any “crazy” events that may happen, but in a series of follow-up tweets, the billionaire drew attention to the pace of AI development, rising mortality among young people after mass vaccination against Covid-19, record-breaking illegal immigration to the US, and anti-white rhetoric from South African presidential hopeful Julius Malema.
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During 2023, Musk repeatedly warned that the conflict between Russia and Ukraine could spiral into a nuclear war between Russia and the US. The billionaire had been providing Ukraine with free access to SpaceX’ Starlink internet service, but has refused to enable the service in the vicinity of Crimea, for fear that Kiev would use Starlink to guide drones to Russian warships. This would have made his company “explicitly complicit in a major act of war and conflict escalation,” he explained in September.
Hundreds of comments under Musk’s post suggested that much of this year’s “craziness” will be centered around the 2024 presidential election in the US. Musk has not backed a candidate in the race, but told an audience in November that he would “not vote for [President Joe] Biden.”
Musk, who previously expressed support for Florida Governor Ron DeSantis and described Vivek Ramaswamy as a “promising candidate,” added that his refusal to support Biden would not automatically translate into a vote for presumptive Republican contender Donald Trump.
