Joy Behar rips Elon Musk as ‘pro-apartheid enemy of the state’ – quickly walks back comments: ‘Don’t be suing me’

Tears of Joy.

The View co-host Joy Behar embarrassingly walked back claims she made that billionaire DOGE chief Elon Musk is a “pro-apartheid,” “foreign agent” and an “enemy of the state.”

“The guy was not born in this country, who was born under apartheid in South Africa,” Behar said during a nativist-tinged rant on Thursday’s show.

“So, [he] has that mentality going on. He was pro-Apartheid, as I understand it,” Behar said.

Behar escalated the incendiary comments, characterizing Musk, who was tapped by President Trump to head the cost-cutting agency, as a “foreign agent” and an “enemy of the state.”

But just after a commercial break, Behar quickly shifted her tone and began backtracking the bombastic and possibly defamatory statements.

“Now I’m getting some flack because I said that Musk was pro-apartheid. I don’t really know for sure if he was,” she said flippantly.

“He grew up at that time when apartheid was in full bloom, before the great Nelson Mandela fixed that. He was around at that time, but maybe he was, maybe he wasn’t — he might have been a young guy, too.”

“So, don’t be suing me, okay Elon?” Behar joked before adding, “They’re allowed to say any lie they want but we have to be really strict.”

Elon Musk, 53, was born in Peoria, South Africa, in 1971, during the height of the racial segregationist policy known as Apartheid. The SpaceX founder became a naturalized American citizen in 2002.

Social media users were not buying Behar’s half-hearted apology — with several viral tweets remarking that the liberal TV host was starting to sound like a caricature of a conservative.

“The libs are anti-immigration now,” one user wrote, adding a clown emoji to the X post with over 14,000 likes.

“This is pure gold. Elon Musk has transformed Joy Behar into a critic of immigration,” another user posted on X.

Commentators on the platform called Behar a “bigot” and “toxic” — with many wishing that the SpaceX CEO would sue the show’s parent company ABC.