Tesla chief and world's second richest man Elon Musk said in a tweet that philanthropist George Soros reminds him of Magneto, the mutant supervillain in the X-Men comic books. He also doubled-down on his attack in an exchange with investigative journalist Brian Krassenstein and said Mr Soros "hates humanity", providing no substantiation to his claim. The billionaire's attack on the 92-year-old came after Soros Fund Management on Friday revealed in a filing that it had dumped its entire stake in Tesla, which it had bought last year.
Mr Musk posted the bizarre tweet on Monday in which he said: "Soros reminds me of Magneto." It has been viewed more than 23 million times.
Among the users who replied to his tweet were independent investigative journalist Brian Krassenstein, who said that both Magneto and Mr Soros are Holocaust survivors and that the Hungarian-American businessman gets "attacked nonstop for his good intentions which some Americans think are bad merely because they disagree with this political affiliations".
"You assume they are good intentions. They are not. He wants to erode the very fabric of civilization. Soros hates humanity," Mr Musk replied, again without giving any proof.
Magneto is an extremely powerful mutant in X-Men, who possesses the superhuman ability to generate and control magnetic field. According to the storyline, he was a Holocaust survivor and a villain who believed humans and mutants could not co-exist. He later became and anti-hero and allied with X-Men.
George Soros is frequently a target of far-right conspiracy theories. Many social media users have made several disparaging and false claims about him. Some of these claims include Mr Soros being a former Nazi - something that was debunked by a 2020 Reuters report.
The news agency said that Mr Soros and his family were not Nazis, they were Hungarian Jews living in Budapest during the Second World War.
According to Bloomberg Billionaires Index, Mr Soros' is worth $8.5 billion.
