Ben Shapiro> I had the honor of sitting down with @elonmusk for an additional hour while we were in Kraków this week. We hit it all: DEI, @SpaceX, aliens, the meaning of life, and how to hold on to the American dream. Watch our full conversation, right here on X:
Interview with @BenShapiro https://t.co/NDcuXIW6YJ
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) January 25, 2024
Daily Wire Editor Emeritus Ben Shapiro sat down with SpaceX and X owner Elon Musk in Krakow, Poland, for an exclusive in-depth discussion hitting numerous issues.
By Zach Jewell
Jan 25, 2024 DailyWire.com
Before Shapiro and Musk took the stage together at the European Jewish Association (EJA) conference in Krakow on Monday, the two had their own separate discussion covering a range of topics from diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) agendas in business to space exploration and religion. The 50-minute Shapiro-Musk sitdown was released on DailyWire+ on Wednesday.
During the conversation, Shapiro zoned in on the current business climate in the West, and Musk revealed what he views as the biggest obstacles standing in the way of companies’ success. The two then discussed the increasing leftist push for companies to go along with DEI.
“One of the things that you and I had been discussing a little bit offline is the fact that DEI effectively is a conspiracy theory in which there’s a cadre of powerful people who are at the top and they control everything else that’s happening,” Shapiro said. “And because those powerful people are at the top, they are exploiting everybody else and they have to be taken down more than one peg. And that conspiracy theory aligns very closely with anti-Semitic conspiracy theories.”
“I think DEI is very extremely anti-Semitic in its core,” Musk replied. “And it’s just generally anti-meritocratic, which I think is very dangerous. You want to have a society where you succeed based on your skills and hard work, and that’s it. And it doesn’t matter about your race, gender, creed, religion, nothing. You know? Just, are you good at your job? Do you work hard? Do you have high integrity? Nothing more.”
Shapiro also asked the billionaire entrepreneur about his concern for declining birth rates around the world, especially in the West, and how much he thinks religion plays a part in people’s choice about having children.
“The birth rate tends to correlate with the degree to which someone is religious, the degree to which they have the least amount of education, and basically the poorer someone is, the less educated someone is and the more religious they are, the more kids they will have,” Musk said.
“So I’m going to make the case to you on a religious level that the only one of those things that is possible to have in the West and not get rid of all the glories of the West is a belief in a higher power or inner religious belief,” Shapiro responded. “I mean, like I’m doing pretty well, and I have four kids.”
Shapiro closed out by asking Musk about an “experience that defines” him, and Musk discussed his ideas on philosophy, God, and the meaning of life.
“In order to [understand the meaning of life] you have to expand the scope and scale of consciousness and get out there and explore the galaxy and then you can better understand the meaning of life,” Musk said.
