South Africa‘s President Cyril Ramaphosa has spoken with Elon Musk to discuss “issues of misinformation and distortions about South Africa,” according to a statement shared on Tuesday (Feb. 4).
“In the process, the President reiterated South Africa’s constitutionally embedded values of the respect for the rule of law, justice, fairness and equality,” it said.
The discussion came a day after Donald Trump said he planned to cut all funding to South Africa over an alleged “human rights violation,” per Associated Press after Musk’s repeated and false claims that his homeland is “anti-white.” He also accused the country of mistreating white farmers, causing Trump to state, “South Africa is confiscating land, and treating certain classes of people VERY BADLY.”
No evidence to back the accusation was provided, CNN reported.
Ramaphosa denied that South African authorities were “confiscating land” and mentioned that his country was looking forward to working with the Trump administration, “over our land reform policy.” During Trump’s first term, he referred to South Africa’s complex land reform in a complaint.
Racist policies forcefully removed Black and non-White South Africans from the land for White use back in the country’s apartheid era. Following their first democratic elections in 1994, there has been a land redistribution and restitution provision in the country’s constitution.
Just last month, Ramaphosa signed a bill into law that provided new guidelines for land expropriation, including enabling the government to expropriate land without compensation in certain cases.
Musk, who now serves as the head of the US’ new Department of Government Efficiency, criticized the new law and accused Ramaphosa of having “openly racist ownership laws” on X.
Similar to the United States and other countries, Ramaphosa explained that South Africa, “always had expropriation laws that balance the need for public usage of land and the protection of rights of property owners.” Beyond a HIV/AIDS relief program, Ramaphosa also expressed that the U.S. didn’t provide “significant” funding to South Africa.
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