The first time I spoke publicly about neuroaccessibility and neuroinclusion, I asked the attendees, “Who do you think of when you think of autism?”
I was expecting most of the answers to be Rainman, a character who — for better or worse — had an outsized effect on my generation’s perception of autism.
But to my surprise, one attendee told me that Elon Musk had recently hosted Saturday Night Live and revealed that he has Asperger’s Syndrome* — and had blamed it for his awkward and rude behavior.
I don’t know whether talking about his lack of people skills in his opening monologue was the plan all along, or whether he was feeling defensive that week about making Chloe Fineman and possibly other cast members cry, but I was pretty offended by the part where he had blamed his weirdness or rudeness on his autism. And it seems that the blame problem is only getting worse.
Side note: He also stated — erroneously — that he was the first person with Asperger’s to host SNL.
In fact, Dan Aykroyd, one of the most famous SNL alums of all time, was diagnosed with Asperger’s in the early 80s. He was a cast member from 1975 to 1979, made numerous guest appearances over the following decades, and then actually hosted in 2003.
I apologize for that digression, but dunking on Elon Musk is always the correct thing to do. Back to the topic.
Elon's excuses keep circulating, even though autistics generally don’t want anything to do with it. This meme, for example, has been going around for a few years now.
But of course, in addition to the many horrors of the past couple of weeks, now we have an all new reason to despise Elon. You know the one.
I’m going to mostly stay out of the argument about whether or not it was a Nazi salute, because of course it was.
What I am going to talk about here instead is how Elon's Asperger’s/autism/neurodivergence is being used to excuse it, and how problematic, offensive, hypocritical, and just plain idiotic that is.
I think we all know by now exactly how compelling the plea to “please be serious” is to Elon’s apologists, because this is just the latest round of a very tired routine.
Here’s the thing. We all want the people we care about to understand how our brains work and give us some grace from time to time. Elon Musk is simply... not what most autistics are like. Not in the important ways, anyway.
Here’s what we’re like.
We (over)explain ourselves and we apologize. If anything, autistics tend to take too much responsibility on ourselves. This is probably at least partially a trauma response — because being autistic in this world is inherently traumatic — but we’re so used to being misunderstood that we tend to explain our reasoning in great detail.
And here I’d like to bring up the smartest thing that I’ve seen written about this entire episode: If Elon didn’t intend it to be a Nazi salute… where’s the apology? Where's the horrified distancing and clarification that any non-fascist would do if they happened to do something that everyone interpreted as supporting fascism?
None of that has happened, and in fact, Elon continues to double down by celebrating far-right groups across the globe.
We’re honest. Autistics often face social consequences for sticking too closely to details and taking too much literally, and some of that is fair. No one likes to be nitpicked.
But this isn’t an issue that Elon has, as his Twitter feed gives us ample evidence of. He's more than happy to play fast and loose with the truth, and associate with others who do the same.
We care about fairness and social justice. Autistics are often incredibly egalitarian, so much so that people think we don’t understand hierarchy (we do, we just don’t necessarily agree with it). We’re empathetic to the point of constantly being on the brink of compassion fatigue. We don’t like hurting people — in fact, when I was workshopping ideas for new standards to help neurodivergents and neurotypicals communicate better, it was the autistics I talked to who insisted that I include kindness.
Elon, on the other hand, wakes up every day with the ability to solve world hunger and houselessness, and just… doesn’t.
Elon can be autistic and have none of the characteristics that autistics usually have, and that's fine. We’re not a monolith... as we say, if you know one autistic, you know one autistic. But he and his fan club don’t get to co-opt all of the stigmas that burden autistics and cram us into an exploding Cybertruck with him.
Autism doesn't make someone cruel, or unfeeling, or dishonest... or a fascist. And blaming autism for crappy behavior only adds to the stigmatization, social isolation, and un(der)employment that autistics already face.
Now, I'm aware Elon's fans won't care that they're increasing autistic stigmas, because if they were empathetic enough to care about people with disabilities, they wouldn’t be Elon’s fans.
But what about everyone else? I frequently hear microaggressions like, “Don’t mind Sam, I think they might be — you know — on the spectrum”, even in progressive social circles and professional spaces. And that’s not okay.
It’s not okay to openly speculate about someone’s neurotype, for one. But it’s also not okay give someone a blanket pass for crappy behavior on any grounds. It doesn’t help the person they’re being crappy to, it doesn’t help the person who’s being excused, and it certainly doesn’t help autistics, most of whom care deeply about not hurting others and constantly try to avoid it.
Tonight when I told my (autistic) son what I was writing, he sent me this.
And that sums it up as well as anything I could say, so I’ll let him have the last word. ∞
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*Let's talk about Asperger’s Syndrome and why I mostly use “autism” in my speaking and writing instead. First, one more meme.
Asperger’s Syndrome is no longer a diagnosis in the DSM. Most people who were originally diagnosed with Asperger’s would be diagnosed with autism (technically ASD or Autism Spectrum Disorder) today.
The name Asperger's has also been rejected by many autistics because its namesake, Hans Asperger, was a Nazi.
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