Elon Musk recently appeared on the Babylon Bee podcast to discuss a wide range of topics, including renewable energy, wokeness, taxes, the prospect of founding a candy company, the Metaverse, rocket science, aliens, the existential risks of advanced AI, and the teachings of Jesus.
The Christian satire site has had a friendly online relationship with the tech mogul for some time, with Musk tweeting about Babylon Bee and the Babylon Bee at one point having an “Elon Musk” tier of donation support.
In the video interview, Babylon Bee CEO Seth Dillon, Editor-in-Chief Kyle Mann, and Creative Director Ethan Nicolle sat down with Musk to pick his brain over the course of about 90 minutes.
Early in the conversation, the issue of “wokeness” was brought up, which the Babylon Bee leaders and Musk agreed is an enemy to comedy.
RELATED: ‘Wokeness & the Gospel’ Conference Draws Accusations of ‘Harmful Rhetoric’
“Generally, I think we should be aiming for like a positive society. And, you know, it should be okay to be humorous,” Musk said with a White Claw in hand. “Wokeness basically wants to make comedy illegal, which is not cool.”
“At its heart, wokeness is divisive, exclusionary, and hateful,” Musk went on to say. “It basically gives mean people…a shield to be mean and cruel, armored in false virtue.”
Musk did not elaborate on how he defines wokeness. However, he did provide as an example the recent criticism directed toward comedian Dave Chappelle for making jokes that many believed to be transphobic.
“The left is almost this religion now, where they’re so serious and they believe what they believe with such intensity that for us to make fun of them, for them it’s like you’re making fun of God or salvation,” said Mann in response to Musk’s remarks. “So they’re almost the new religious right, in our view.”
RELATED: ‘God Delusion’ Author Richard Dawkins Signs Declaration Against Gender Transitions for Children
Later in the conversation, the group began discussing Musk’s vision for space travel, and Musk shared why the prospect of colonizing other planets is so important to him.