While taking an interest in Irish politics and recent events, Elon Musk knows "nothing" about the country, according to a Wired reporter.
David Gilbert told The Anton Savage Show leading Irish far-right figures online have developed close relationships with their counterparts across the pond.
Mr Gilbert said one man in particular has been very successful in developing these relationships.
“Central to this is a guy called Keith O’Brien from Roscommon who is known online as Keith Woods,” he said.
“Over the course of the last couple of years, he has made friends online with a lot of high-ranking or important far-right figures in the US. Including Nick Fuentes who’s the head of the America First movement, and crucially, Elon Musk.”
And the government will define “hate speech”. The people of Ireland should not stand for this!
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 25, 2023
The Wired reporter said this led to the owner of X, formerly known as Twitter, becoming an online commentator on last week's riots in Dublin.
“When all this broke out on Thursday [November 24th], Elon Musk just had to get involved. There’s nothing he doesn’t want to stick his nose in, even though he knows nothing about it,” said Mr Gilbert.
“He turned to Keith Woods [for information] who has built up a huge following by positing antisemitic content on Telegram.”
Mr Gilbert said the Roscommon man painted a certain picture for Elon Musk as to what is going on in Ireland.
“What [Keith O’Brien] was saying was that the riots in Dublin were just a result of the Government ignoring what he and other people have been saying about immigrants coming into the country,” he said.
“That led Elon Must to Tweet about it, and then Conor McGregor got involved before it quickly filtered out to all of the other blue checkmark guys on Twitter.”
“As a result, we’ve got huge swathes of the US far-right talking about Ireland in terms that show they really don’t know what they’re talking about.”
US interest in Ireland
Mr Gilbert explained the motivation for US figures such as Nick Fuentes, Tucker Carlson, and Steve Bannon to speak about Ireland.
“Fuentes and the others have been pushing this narrative that immigration is the biggest threat to the American people,” he said.
“They all believe that the American Government, and governments around the globe, are pushing this campaign to replace native populations with immigrants.
“This is a grand conspiracy that’s been around for decades but has been ramped up by these figures in recent years.”
Growth of Far-Right in Ireland
Mr Gilbert said the far-right in Ireland have recently adopted this way of thinking.
“Over the last six months, we’ve seen a huge uptake in protests and violence around direct provision centres in Ireland.
“We’ve also seen allegations of vigilantism in little towns and villages around Ireland.”
The Wired reporter added that these US figures are talking about immigration in Ireland to further their own goals of “making people scared of immigrants”.
Listen back now:
