Elon Musk said George Soros reminds him of 'X-Men' mutant Magneto in a bizarre tweet about the oft-maligned billionaire

Elon Musk, Michael Fassbender as Magneto, and George Soros. Dimitrios Kambouris/Getty Images for The Met Museum/Vogue, Murray Close/Getty Images, OLIVIER HOSLET/POOL/AFP via Getty Images

• Elon Musk tweeted that George Soros reminds him of the "X-Men" mutant Magneto. 
• Musk also claimed without substantiation that Soros "hates humanity."
• Soros is often demonized by the right and has become the subject of many conspiracy theories.

Elon Musk on Monday bizarrely compared George Soros to the "X-Men" mutant Magneto, claiming without substantiation that the billionaire "hates humanity." 

His tweet on Monday, which offered no context for his comparison, simply stated: "Soros reminds me of Magneto." It has been viewed more than 14 million times as of press time. 

—Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 16, 2023

Musk then got into a spat with investigative journalist Brian Krassenstein over his tweet.

Krassenstein said: "Fun fact: Magneto's experiences during the Holocaust as a survivor shaped his perspective as well as his depth and empathy."

Krassenstein added that Soros, who is also a Holocaust survivor, gets "attacked nonstop for his good intentions which some Americans think are bad merely because they disagree with this political affiliations."

Musk replied to his Krassenstein's tweet, saying: "You assume they are good intentions. They are not. He wants to erode the very fabric of civilization. Soros hates humanity." 

—Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 16, 2023

Magneto is a mutant character in the Marvel Comics, who possesses the superhuman ability to generate and control magnetic fields. Magneto was a Holocaust survivor, whose arc in the comics took him from a clear-cut villain who believed humans and mutants could not coexist, to an anti-hero allying with the X-Men. 

Soros, a 92-year-old Hungarian-American businessman and philanthropist worth $8.5 billion, has been wrongly accused of being a former Nazi. This claim was debunked by a 2020 Reuters report — Soros and his family were not Nazis,  they were Hungarian Jews living in Budapest during World War II.

Unfounded conspiracy theories about Soros are abound, with some believing that he conspired to fill Budapest with refugees, tried to start a civil war in the US, and used his money and power to influence politics. 

There might be a reason for Musk's anger at Soros. The Tesla CEO's tweets came hours after it was revealed that Soros' fund dumped its entire stake in Tesla's stocks in the first quarter of this year, per a 13F filing published on Friday.

The Soros Fund Management had held around 132,000 shares of Tesla at the end of the year, and sold it all in the first quarter as its stock rose 68% from January to March, per the filing.

Representatives of Musk and Soros did not immediately respond to Insider's requests for comment sent outside regular business hours.