Elon Musk blasts 'woke mind virus' in revealing interview with Bill Maher

Elon Musk blasted the extent to which the "woke mind virus" has infested education in an exclusive interview on HBO's "Real Time with Bill Maher" Friday night.

"I think we need to be very cautious about anything that is anti-meritocratic and anything that results in the suppression of free speech," Twitter CEO Musk told host Bill Maher.

"So those are two of the aspects of the ‘woke mind virus’ that I think are very dangerous ... you can’t question things, even the questioning is bad. Almost synonymous would be cancel culture."

Musk went on to discuss the worrisome impact the "woke mind virus" has had on education. Saturday morning, he doubled down, saying the extent of teachers' indoctrination of children had reached a "shocking degree."

In Musk's view, the infestation of the "woke mind virus" has "been a long time brewing." He estimated the infiltration took place over the last two decades.

"The amount of indoctrination that's happening in schools and universities is, I think, far beyond what parents realize."

He emphasized that the educational experiences of Baby Boomers and GenX differ wildly from the experiences of today's students.

Musk agreed to some extent with Maher's suggestion that parents are to blame, at least in part, noting that parents' lack of awareness has contributed to the problem.

"Parents are just generally not aware of what their kids are being taught or what they're not being taught," Musk said during the interview.

"Most parents have no idea how bad it is," Musk tweeted Saturday.

As an example, Musk related a story about the children of a friend. He said that though the children, high school students in the Bay Area, could name George Washington as one of the first presidents, the extent of their knowledge about him was that he was a slave owner.

"Maybe you should know more than that," Musk said.

"That is the woke mind virus exactly," Maher responded, to applause from the audience.

Musk said he had invested "a massive amount" of his life to pursing avenues of sustainable energy like electric vehicles and solar to "help save the environment."

"It's not exactly far-right," he joked.

Musk's interview with Maher comes amid controversy over popular media figure Tucker Carlson abruptly disappearing from his time slot on Fox News Channel. Carlson responded to the controversy on Twitter in a brief video post that has since garnered 77.3 million views.

"Where can you still find Americans saying true things? There aren't many places left, but there are some, and that's enough. As long as you can hear the words, there's hope," Carlson said.

"See you soon," he concluded.

Musk, who is Twitter's CEO, responded simply with "wow" to a post claiming the number of views of Carlson's post on the platform was greater than "all cable news shows for the entire day combined."

Watch a segment of Elon Musk's interview with Bill Maher on HBO's "Real Time with Bill Maher" below.

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