Photo Illustration: Intelligencer; Photos: Getty

Elon Musk is an incredibly unfunny edgelord who has recently become a vocal supporter of Donald Trump. When Taylor Swift endorsed Kamala Harris shortly after Tuesday night’s debate, the billionaire owner of X naturally looked for the creepiest response possible. And he found it by responding to Swift’s self-description as a “childless cat lady” (a jab at Trump’s running mate JD Vance) by offering, or perhaps threatening, to impregnate her.

Understandably, people are focusing a lot on the “I’m going to give you a child” part of this post. There’s a lot going on here. Musk openly sexually harassed Swift on X for expressing a political opinion; he’s been accused of sexual misconduct before (which he denies). And the remark fits with other strange and disturbing statements from the billionaire. Musk – who has fathered at least 12 children with three women – is obsessed with low birth rates, which has led him to promote the “great displacement theory,” a white supremacist conspiracy theory (though he says he “doesn’t support it”).

What you may be missing is that there’s also a racist aspect to Musk’s response to Swift. At first glance, the “protect your cats with my life” part could be interpreted as Musk teasing Swift with a version of “I know you want a strong man to protect you and your beloved cats,” in response to Swift’s “childless cat lady” jibe and the appearance of one of her cats in her promo post.

But what Musk actually said was, “Taylor, I will protect your beloved cats from the migrants who are trying to eat them.” We know Musk believes the baseless claim that Haitian immigrants are kidnapping and eating pets in Springfield, Ohio. On Sunday, he did his part to spread the right’s new favorite conspiracy theory:

And during the debate, he retweeted that post, complaining that moderators had fact-checked Trump’s statements about his “They’ll eat the dogs!” chant.

On the other hand, Musk seemed to support the view that Swift’s post was just a joke:

I guess we should all cut ourselves some slack when one of the most powerful men in the world says disgusting things about women and minorities!