In September,<\/span> Elon Musk amplified a post<\/a> from Autism Capital\u2014a pro-Trump X account that he often reposts\u2014that read: \u201cOnly high T alpha males and aneurotypical people (hey autists!) are actually free to parse new information with an objective \u2018is this true?\u2019 filter. This is why a Republic of high status males is best for decision making. Democratic, but a democracy only for those who are free to think.\u201d Musk called the claim, which originated on the infamous web forum 4chan, an \u201cinteresting observation.\u201d His repost was viewed 20 million times.<\/p>\n Musk is the world\u2019s most prominent\u2014and most powerful\u2014autistic person. It\u2019s not something he conceals; notably, he mentioned it during a 2021 monologue<\/a> on Saturday Night Live<\/em>. Only \u201cautistic\u201d wasn\u2019t the term he used. Musk told the SNL<\/em> audience he had Asperger\u2019s syndrome, a term struck<\/a> from the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) in 2013 and largely disused in psychiatry.<\/p>\n But Asperger\u2019s has persisted in popular culture, even as psychiatrists have ditched it. As a shorthand for autistic people with low support needs, it has gradually become an armchair diagnosis that\u2019s often used to sidestep the baggage or consequences that come with calling someone autistic. It means not autistic<\/em> autistic; autistic, but not quite. The words \u201cmild\u201d or \u201chigh-\u00adfunctioning\u201d are never far off. \u201cAspies,\u201d in this vision, are socially inept, technically gifted, mathematically minded, unemotional, blunt. They can probably code.<\/p>\n At its best, the cultural rise of \u00adAsperger\u2019s\u00ad has yielded somewhat positive (if still flattening) depictions in media: Think \u00adSheldon Cooper in The Big Bang Theory<\/em>. But who are we talking about when we talk about Aspies? The answer is bound up with ideas about white men\u2014who were disproportionately given the label\u2014and decades of underdiagnosis of other autistic people.<\/p>\n Musk isn\u2019t oblivious to Aspie stereotypes. He\u2019s used them to get off the hook: \u201cI sometimes say or post strange things,\u201d he told the SNL<\/em> audience, \u201cbut that\u2019s just how my brain works.\u201d He\u2019s worked them into his self-promotion: In a 2022 TED interview, Musk called himself \u201cabsolutely obsessed with truth,\u201d crediting Asperger\u2019s with his desire to \u201cexpand the scope and scale of consciousness, biological and digital.\u201d And he\u2019s deployed them politically: By pushing the line that empathy is a \u201cfundamental weakness,\u201d Musk both reminds audiences of the discarded, dehumanizing idea that a lack of empathy is an autistic trait and implies that his own cold detachment from humanity is the best way to project strength in Donald Trump\u2019s America.<\/p>\n In the 1930s<\/span> and \u201940s, the Austrian physician Hans Asperger separated children with what he called \u201cautism psychopathy\u201d into two groups: those with more noticeable disabilities and those whose atypical traits could, he thought, sometimes manifest in beneficial skill sets. Drawing on his work, psychiatrists first used the term Asperger\u2019s syndrome in 1981; it entered the DSM as an official diagnosis in 1994. But Asperger\u2019s quickly came to be seen as an artificial distinction, and was dropped from<\/a> the DSM amid a growing recognition that autism encompassed a wide spectrum of cognitive differences. Its reputation wasn\u2019t helped by the 2018 revelation that Asperger had sent disabled children to die<\/a> under the Nazi eugenics regime.<\/p>\n Asperger\u2019s syndrome also emerged at a time when some leading psychiatrists theorized that autism in general, and Asperger\u2019s in particular, were extreme manifestations<\/a> of the \u201cmale brain\u201d\u2014a predictable result of who was being diagnosed. When Asper\u00adger\u2019s was still clinically recognized, the ratio of men to women diagnosed with the condition was around 11 to 1; today, for autism spectrum disorder, it\u2019s closer to 3 to 1. Differences in the ways boys and girls are pressured to mask<\/a> autistic behavior, alongside psychiatrists\u2019 own biases, have led to massive failures to diagnose autistic women; similar factors<\/a> have made white children from better-off families much more likely<\/a> than other kids to receive autism diagnoses and support, trends that improved screening has begun to change.<\/p>\n As psychiatrists began to drop the Asperger\u2019s diagnosis, tech embraced it\u2014as the \u201cgood\u201d autism, an improvement on both disability and \u201cnormie\u201d inferiority.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/figure>\n But even as psychiatrists began to drop the Asperger\u2019s diagnosis, tech figures started to embrace it\u2014as the \u201cgood\u201d autism, an improvement on both disability and \u201cnormie\u201d inferiority. The Aspie label suggested symptoms that might make you better at your job, even bestow an aura of savanthood, provided that job was somehow technical. The Silicon Valley self-proclaimed Aspie is superintelligent and superrational\u2014but not too weird to invite to parties. Being an Aspie could make you, in tech terms<\/a>, \u201c10X.\u201d<\/p>\n The late autistic writer Mel Baggs gave a name to this line of thinking: \u201cAspie supremacy.\u201d The ideas of the Aspie supremacist, Baggs wrote<\/a> in a 2010 article, \u201care very close to the views of those in power.\u201d The more productive you appear at work, the more likely you are to be deemed exceptional\u2014or at least worth keeping around.<\/p>\n Of course, plenty of people identify as having Asperger\u2019s without harboring a sense of superiority, let alone signing up for Silicon Valley\u2013brand Aspie supremacy. Often, they\u2019re sticking with a diagnosis they were given when it still had clinical currency; other times, they\u2019re responding to pervasive discrimination, a factor in autistic people\u2019s unemployment rate<\/a> of about 40 percent. But something distinctive happens when the Goldilocks notion of being \u201cjust autistic enough\u201d collides with a sense of entitlement like Musk\u2019s. As the Dutch academic Anna N. de Hooge, who is autistic, wrote in a 2019 paper<\/a>, \u201ca particular type of \u2018high-functioning\u2019 autistic individual is ascribed superiority, both over other autistic people and over non-autistic people\u201d\u2014a superiority \u201cdefined in terms of whiteness, masculinity and economic worthiness.\u201d<\/p>\n Jules Edwards, a board member at the Autistic Women & Nonbinary Network, a neurodiversity and disability justice nonprofit, calls Musk\u2019s attitudes both an \u201canomaly\u201d and the \u201cepitome of Aspie supremacy.\u201d \u201cIt takes all of those different ways in which [Musk] was advantaged just by the circumstances of his birth,\u201d Edwards says. \u201cHe was born into financial wealth, he\u2019s white, he\u2019s cis, he\u2019s male\u2014all of this stuff that balls together.\u201d<\/p>\n Musk\u2019s fantasies of superiority connect deeply to his twin obsessions with genetics and reproduction\u2014especially his own. \u201cHe really wants smart people to have kids,\u201d Musk\u2019s colleague Shivon Zilis, mother to four of his 14 publicly reported children, told the journalist Walter Isaacson. Zilis, an executive at Musk\u2019s Neuralink, was apparently delighted<\/a> by Musk\u2019s offer to procreate: \u201cI can\u2019t possibly think of genes I would prefer for my children.\u201d (Taylor Swift, famously presented<\/a> with the same proposition<\/a>, apparently felt otherwise.)<\/p>\n To the Silicon Valley right, the white, male skew of their industry reflects natural differences in technical and leadership skills\u2014differences that happen to align perfectly with the pop culture caricature of Asperger\u2019s that supremacists embrace.<\/p>\n This tech world<\/span> fascination with Asperger\u2019s goes back decades. In a 2001 Wired<\/em> article<\/a> titled \u201cThe Geek Syndrome,\u201d Steve Silberman wrote, \u201cIt\u2019s a familiar joke in the industry that many of the hardcore programmers in IT strongholds like Intel, Adobe, and Silicon Graphics\u2014coming to work early, leaving late, sucking down Big Gulps in their cubicles while they code for hours\u2014are residing somewhere in Asperger\u2019s domain.\u201d (Silberman went on to write NeuroTribes<\/em>, a still well-regarded book<\/a> on neurodivergence.) Microsoft introduced<\/a> an \u201cAutism Hiring Program\u201d in 2015, which offered thoughtful improvements to hiring practices\u2014albeit ones seemingly motivated, at least in part, by the idea that good tech workers were disproportionately autistic. Around the same time, GOP megadonor Peter Thiel, who co-founded PayPal with Musk, said in an interview<\/a> that \u201cmany of the more successful entrepreneurs seem to be suffering from a mild form of Asperger\u2019s where it\u2019s like you\u2019re missing the imitation, socialization gene.\u201d (Thiel has also called<\/a> environmentalism an \u201cautistic children\u2019s crusade\u201d and China a \u201cweirdly autistic\u201d and \u201cprofoundly uncharismatic\u201d country.)<\/p>\n \u201cWe have already given enough of our flesh, blood and sanity to women and normies.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/figure>\n Then there\u2019s crypto ex-billionaire Sam Bankman-Fried, whose autism was deployed in court<\/a> to present him as less culpable for the mass fraud of which he was convicted<\/a>. Making the case that her son should avoid prison time, Stanford law professor Barbara Fried wrote that<\/a> \u201chis inability to read or respond appropriately to many social cues, and his touching but naive belief in the power of facts and reason to resolve disputes, put him in extreme danger.\u201d Never mind his company\u2019s exploration<\/a> of \u201chuman genetic enhancement\u201d or the price others paid for his profound superiority complex\u2014SBF was prepared to present himself as disabled for exactly as long as it was a useful defense.<\/p>\n At other times, Silicon Valley\u2019s Aspie supremacists make it a priority to come after those they see as \u201cactually\u201d disabled. Musk notoriously did so shortly after buying Twitter, when he publicly interrogated<\/a> staffer Haraldur Thorleifsson, who has muscular dystrophy, on whether he was simply shirking work. The ensuing fallout, and concerns over possible workplace discrimination, prompted a rare Musk apology<\/a>. But his grade-school passion for ableist slurs has only grown<\/a>. \u201cThose who cling to the Asperger\u2019s identity will often invoke that to discriminate or engage in lateral ableism\u201d\u2014targeting those they consider \u201cmore\u201d disabled\u2014says Seton Hall University professor Jess Rauchberg, who studies digital cultures and disability.<\/p>\n Aspie supremacists view themselves, above all, as exceptional beings, adapting the logic of misogyny and racism to twist false stereotypes of autistic people into self-serving positives. Musk clearly buys into an Asperger\u2019s-era image of the unempathetic, relentlessly rational autistic man, but it\u2019s a lazy excuse for a brand of \u201cfuck your feelings\u201d shitposting that\u2019s ubiquitous on the right. If it\u2019s true that autistic people can struggle to interpret social signals, it\u2019s just as true that autistic displays of empathy can be nuanced and easy for others to write off, and that empathy can vary as much<\/a> in autistic people as in anyone else; Musk\u2019s war on empathy may be more of a him problem.<\/p>\n Besides, Musk only pins his bad takes on Asperger\u2019s when it\u2019s convenient\u2014as when he used it to excuse himself on SNL<\/em>. His yearslong track record<\/a> of promoting race science has nothing to do with being autistic. Nor did his infamous Trump rally salutes<\/a>\u2014the ones Musk, while insisting they weren\u2019t a Nazi thing, chased with a litany<\/a> of Nazi jokes. (Some of his fans were happy to chalk up the incident to his diagnosis; critics tended to chalk it up to, well, what he actually believes.) His anti-trans attacks<\/a>, including misgendering his trans daughter<\/a> (who has called<\/a> Musk a \u201cpathetic man-child\u201d), don\u2019t have anything to do with being autistic either\u2014especially given that autistic people are more likely<\/a> to be transgender, nonbinary, or gender nonconforming.<\/p>\n In 4chan posts mentioning the term \u201cAspie\u201d (gathered with the help of the UC Berkeley Human Rights Center<\/a>), there\u2019s a lot of support for Musk. But even more notable is how many are explicitly misogynistic. That\u2019s not surprising to Rauchberg, who sees Aspie supremacy as \u201cpart of the larger manosphere.\u201d One user, for example, wrote the following: \u201cWe autistic men already drive ourselves crazy engaging in self-sacrifice and simping for women and normies. I hang around with some guys that I have nicknamed \u2018the Aspie bros\u2019 and we have fun together twice a week. This is what Aspie men need. We have already given enough of our flesh, blood and sanity to women and normies.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cRobot wives are a step up over women in every way,\u201d reads another post. \u201cLook what (((they))) did to Tay, Character AI, ChatGPT etc. We need a few billionaires, influencers and politicians sympathetic to our cause.\u201d (The three parentheses designate Jewish people, another favorite target of the online far right.)<\/p>\n \u201cI am sincerely glad that we are creating a network of \u2018Aspie atheist MRA\u2019\u201d\u2014men\u2019s rights activist\u2014\u201c\u2018incel neckbeards\u2019 which is reaching every corner of the globe,\u201d another user answered.<\/p>\n But even on 4chan, accounts of rejection and bullying, and the pain and sadness they provoke, stand out. A typical post\u2014\u201cI see the bullshit in the world but Aspie brotherhood is the solution\u201d\u2014came in reply to the less combative \u201cI have terminal autism but still desire a female companion even though I know it\u2019ll never happen.\u201d<\/p>\n Most autistic people who are bullied don\u2019t declare war on \u201cnormies\u201d; most people who struggle with dating, autistic or otherwise, don\u2019t become incels. But most people are less conditioned than Musk, the scion<\/a> of rich, far-right eugenics supporters, to believe they\u2019re entitled to admiration, approval, women, and friends.<\/p>\n Aspie supremacists view themselves as exceptional beings, adapting the logic of misogyny and racism to twist false autistic stereotypes into self-serving positives.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/figure>\n True, Musk doesn\u2019t have as prominent a relationship<\/a> with incel culture<\/a> as some manosphere influencers, though he\u2019s both peddled the ideology and restored the accounts<\/a> of high-profile misogynists like Andrew Tate. But Musk\u2019s juvenile, hateful tweets (and those of others, which skyrocketed<\/a> after he bought Twitter) are only the tip of the iceberg: A lawsuit by a group of fired SpaceX employees details a litany<\/a> of alleged harassment and hostile behavior by Musk and his underlings, often phrased in terminally online, 4chan-coded ways.<\/p>\n Musk faced serious, traumatic bullying himself, both by his father and schoolmates, as Isaacson\u2014whose 2023 biography includes Musk\u2019s mother\u2019s belief<\/a> that her son is autistic\u2014and New York Times<\/em> technology reporter Kate Conger have noted. \u201cThere\u2019s two routes that you can take from an abuse experience,\u201d Conger said on a December podcast appearance<\/a>. \u201cThere\u2019s \u2018I want to heal from this and not pass it on, and sort of move down a new path.\u2019 And then there\u2019s a second path that I think Musk has been more active in pursuing, in taking that negative experience and turning it into a \u2018superpower\u2019 for himself.\u201d<\/p>\n The world according to Aspie supremacists<\/em><\/p>\n Would Musk<\/span> call himself an Aspie supremacist? Who knows. After all, it\u2019s a label first developed by the ideology\u2019s critics (and he didn\u2019t reply to our questions). But some of his fans certainly embrace it. One post on X from @autismchud complimented Musk on his communication style: \u201cElon\u2019s Asperger\u2019s really comes through in this story in the best way possible. There\u2019s no HR language, no social tact, no consensus filtering or games, just what the goal is and how to achieve that goal.\u201d<\/p>\n DOGE, with its infamous squad<\/a> of young engineers, offers a deeply relevant case study in reckless, egotistical overconfidence. With almost no applicable expertise, Musk and his DOGE bros have stormed<\/a> the government\u2014canning nuclear safety officers<\/a> (whom they were swiftly forced to rehire), erasing<\/a> living people from Social Security databases, accessing sensitive health and tax<\/a> information. As seen earlier in his Twitter takeover<\/a>, Musk\u2019s certainty that he knows best manifests as an unhesitating eagerness to \u201cdisrupt\u201d and dismantle services without regard to the harms to employees or the public at large.<\/p>\n A society with too much empathy\u2014the kind of society Musk claims we live in\u2014wouldn\u2019t be full of ostracized, bullied kids who grow into adults like him.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/figure>\n Meanwhile, Musk was a top adviser to a president who believes that people<\/a> with complex disabilities \u201cshould just die,\u201d according<\/a> to Trump\u2019s own nephew, who has a disabled son. Trump is eager to dismantle<\/a> the Department of Education, whose support provides the only means by which some disabled students, many autistic ones included, are able to finish school. Similarly, cuts to Medicaid<\/a> would strip funds that pay for home care aides who work with autistic people.<\/p>\n A society with too much empathy\u2014the kind of society Musk claims we live in\u2014wouldn\u2019t be full of ostracized, bullied kids who grow into adults like him. A society that supported, or at least more thoughtfully approached, autistic traits wouldn\u2019t produce 4chan boards full of his Aspie supremacist fans. It would allow people like Musk to speak openly about being autistic, without retreating from the word, and to engage with initiatives led by<\/a> autistic people, not figures like Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. who describe<\/a> autism as an \u201cinjury\u201d that renders people<\/a> incapable of holding jobs, making art, or playing sports.<\/p>\n Aspie supremacists do real harm to autistic people in their embrace of gendered, racialized stereotypes, and in drawing spurious lines between themselves and anyone they consider<\/a> \u201cseverely\u201d autistic. Musk may simply be a jerk, but he\u2019s a jerk with a tremendous platform\u2014and one whose fans loudly, publicly connect his shitty personal behavior and fascistic policies to \u201cmild\u201d autism.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s really frustrating to be caught in this place where we\u2019re trying to be inclusive of all autistic people, and there are such polarizing opinions and perspectives about autism,\u201d says Jules Edwards. \u201cIt causes this additional challenge when we\u2019re advocating for inclusion and access, trying to educate people about what is autism versus the idea of \u2018good autism\u2019 or \u2018bad autism.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n To the Elon Musks of the world, autism is a disability, but the soft-pedaled label of Asperger\u2019s syndrome\u2014\u201cgood\u201d autism, \u201cmild\u201d autism\u2014is something else: a marker of elite status, the perfect finishing touch for a white guy in tech.<\/p>\n Additional research and sensitivity support by Katrina Janco<\/a><\/em>.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n\n
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The world\u2019s richest, most powerful self-proclaimed Aspie: Elon Musk himself.<\/li>\n
Terminally online, 4chan-coded SpaceX fanboys who think little of their fellow techies\u2014or anyone else.<\/li>\n
The normies\u2019 Tesla-driving best and brightest. Women need not apply.<\/li>\n
Society\u2019s background noise. Great with kids. Love dogs. Laugh politely at your epic memes.<\/li>\n
There\u2019s no one Aspie supremacists loathe more than disabled people with more visible needs.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n![\"Pyramid](\"https:\/\/www.motherjones.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/504_ASPIE-SUPREMACY_numbered.png\")
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