"South Korea in Turmoil, What's the Core Issue?"... Musk Shows Interest in Rally Video

Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla, X

Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla, posted a message on X (formerly Twitter) mentioning the political situation in Korea.

On the morning of the 6th (local time), Musk shared a post related to Korea from the news and media account 'Visegrad24' on X, writing, "Wild times in Korea! What is actually the crux of the issue?" The post from Visegrad24 included information that the High-ranking Officials' Crime Investigation Unit (Gongsoocheo) in Korea decided to hand over the execution of an arrest warrant for President Yoon Seok-yeol to the police, and that support for President Yoon was increasing. The attached video showed a rally of President Yoon's supporters.

This is not the first time Musk has shown interest in Korean politics. On December 3rd last year, after President Yoon declared martial law, Musk commented with quotation marks on a post reporting the situation in Korea on X, and shortly after, on a post stating that the Korean National Assembly passed a resolution demanding the lifting of martial law, he wrote "Wow" as an expression of amazement.

A post Elon Musk uploaded on the 3rd. X

Also, on the 3rd of this month, he replied "Wow" to a Visegrad24 post containing a photo of protesters opposing the arrest of President Yoon. The photo showed President Yoon's supporters holding signs with slogans such as "Stop the Steal," "Martial Law Legal! Impeachment Invalid! God Bless Our Country, Long Live," among others. Notably, the slogan "Stop the Steal" was used by supporters of Donald Trump, the former U.S. president, who denied the results of the 2020 presidential election. The slogan "Fight Fight Fight" written on the corner of the sign in the photo was also a phrase Trump shouted to his supporters after he was shot during a rally in July last year.

Meanwhile, foreign media have pointed to "chronic political polarization" and "online agitation" as reasons for Korea's political turmoil. Recently, the New York Times (NYT) in the U.S. published an explanatory article titled "How Fear and Conspiracy Theories Fuel Korea’s Political Crisis," noting, "If Donald Trump has MAGA (Make America Great Again) behind him, President Yoon has the Taegeukgi Unit."

The NYT also criticized President Yoon and right-wing YouTubers for claiming that Korea's election results can no longer be trusted, pointing out that when President Yoon declared martial law, he deployed soldiers to the National Election Commission to investigate allegations of election fraud. The article added, "Most Koreans consider such conspiracy theories to be nothing more than online agitation spread by right-wing YouTubers, but amid deep-rooted political polarization, they have fueled confusion surrounding President Yoon’s situation and driven fervent supporters to take to the streets."