Maye Musk, the mother of SpaceX founder Elon Musk, recently criticized the state of New York City for its homelessness problem and said the Big Apple wasn’t as bad as it is today just two years ago.
On Tuesday, Sept. 10, Maye Musk posted pictures on her X page that she took while walking her dog. One photo showed a homeless person wrapped up in a sleeping bag and a colorful blanket; the other photo showed a bunch of litter and trash on the sidewalk.
In a caption accompanying the photos, the 76-year-old model and dietitian said she was walking her dog early in the morning in downtown New York and kept the dog “on a tight leash,” implying the city was less safe because of what was pictured. She then wrote that it used to not be that way and “started the last two years,” ending the post by asking, “Why?”
Homelessness has been on the rise in the Big Apple, and an annual survey published in January by the Homeless Outreach Population Estimate found that the numbers are the highest recorded in over a decade.
Many social media users criticized the SpaceX founder’s mother for her remarks, claiming New York City was always this way and had a homelessness problem. One user sarcastically apologized to Maye Musk, whose family is one of the richest in the world, for the “inconvenience” of “a human being in need” laying on the ground, and another sarcastically asked how a homeless person dared to “intrude” on a rich lady taking a walk.
As Elon Musk continues to shake up American culture and even geopolitical relations, his mother has been one of his biggest supporters, even defending him from media smear campaigns. In 2022, she slammed the New York Times for publishing an article that claimed Elon grew up with “white privilege” in South Africa during the era of apartheid and was untouched by “apartheid’s atrocities.” The article said Elon was raised around “anti-black propaganda” and criticized his “takeover of Twitter.”
Maye Musk said that people “went to jail” for publicly opposing apartheid in South Africa and pointed out that people in Russia also went to jail for opposing war. She then asked the New York Times if they were “going to blame children” for governmental decisions.
