Elon Musk’s empathy comment, explained

Elon Musk has been making headlines ever since he ascended to the top ranks of President Donald Trump’s inner circle. As the leader of governmental cost-cutting agency DOGE, the billionaire and Tesla owner has drawn criticism for his sweeping cuts in funding and mass layoffs of federal employees, as well as his social media attacks on Democratic politicians. 

Amid all the noise, there is one comment made by the billionaire that is garnering attention on social media and in news outlets. Delivered during an appearance on a popular podcast last month, the comment turned heads as it came amid all of Musk’s seemingly heartless political manoeuvres of late. “The fundamental weakness of Western civilization is empathy,” Musk said. 

Musk made the empathy comment on Joe Rogan’s podcast.

Musk was quoted saying empathy is “the fundamental weakness of Western civilization” on an episode of the Joe Rogan-hosted podcast, The Joe Rogan Experience, that was released on Feb. 28. In the full quote, Musk is heard saying that he “believe[s] in empathy” and that “you should care about other people,” but that empathy as a whole is weakening civilization. “The fundamental weakness of Western civilization is empathy,” he continued, “the empathy exploit. They’re exploiting a bug in Western civilization, which is the empathy response.”

Musk concluded that “empathy is good, but you need to think it through and not just be programmed like a robot.” It was part of Musk’s broader criticisms of the Democratic Party, which he claimed had exploited human empathy to push for more progressive policies that he doesn’t agree with. Musk also claimed that “weaponized empathy is the issue” with the Democratic party and with society, before discussing the concept of “suicidal empathy.”

Musk cited Gad Saad’s concept of “suicidal empathy”

To my dear American friends: Beware of @GavinNewsom. He is a slightly smarter version of @justintrudeau but shares in his degenerate parasitic mind and suicidal empathy. Canada has been destroyed by nine years of Trudeau. Don't make the same mistake that we did on three…

— Gad Saad (@GadSaad) March 6, 2025

Adding to the context of his discussion, Musk connected his comments about empathy being a “fundamental weakness” to the concepts of Canadian marketing professor, Gad Saad. Gaad has frequently shared posts on social media about his concept of “suicidal empathy,” which he defines as excessive compassion for others to the point of undermining societal cohesion, values, and security.

“[Gaad] talks about suicidal empathy,” Musk told Rogan. “Like, there’s so much empathy that you actually suicide yourself. So, we’ve got civilizational suicidal empathy going on.” Musk then cited Gaad to argue that “you need to have empathy for civilization as a whole, and not commit to a civilizational suicide.” 

Musk’s comments received fierce backlash

"The fundamental weakness of Western civilization is empathy."
– Elon Musk

Subtext: I’m a sociopath at best, psychopath at worst.

— Adrian Todd Zuniga 🇺🇦 (@atzuniga) March 9, 2025

It wasn’t long before Musk’s comments drew harsh criticism from both social media users and news outlets. “Musk’s statement that ‘the fundamental weakness of Western civilization is empathy’ is just Nazism,” one person wrote on X, with another adding that the comment should prompt a “mass boycott [of] all his products.” For its part, Sydney Morning Herald ran a story declaring “Elon Musk is wrong” about his empathy comments, while Neos Kosmos wrote that Musk’s quote “misses the point of Western Civilisation”.