Elon Musk Champions Widely Popular Conspiracy Theory That Patriot Front Truly ‘Feds’

Patriot Front, a white supremacist group with members across the U.S., paraded in New York on Saturday, according to various videos posted to social media. That parade prompted a lot of X users to insist, without proof, that Patriot Front is essentially a counterfeit group instigated by the FBI to incite turmoil in the country. X owner Elon Musk even chimed in on the speculation of the conspiracy theory, insinuating that a picture showing Patriot Front members getting apprehended in 2022 was somehow fishy.

“This does seem odd. Why no mask removal after arrest?” Musk tweeted on Saturday in response to an X user named Champagne Joshi.

Joshi referred to the hate group as “Fed Front,” asking in a tweet, “How many times have you seen a group of masked men dressed exactly the same, handcuffed with not one masked pulled off to reveal their identity? This is aimed at gullible libtards who want to believe these are ‘white nationalists’ bc it affirms their worldview and it’s an election year.”

But there’s no evidence that Patriot Front is anything but a white supremacist organization, as defined by the ADL. And despite their face coverings, the identities of many Patriot Front members were disclosed to the public in recent years.

Actually, the photo Musk responded to on Saturday was from the 2022 arrest of 31 Patriot Front members in Idaho who were supposedly plotting to riot at an LGBT Pride event in the city of Coeur d’Alene. Those men were unmasked as they were being arrested, as video available on X proves.

Thanks to those arrests, 31 of the Patriot Front members had their identities revealed, and there has yet to be any credible evidence presented that any of those men were agents of the federal government.

At least seven of the Patriot Front members who descended on Idaho have been found guilty of intent to riot, with an additional 15 pleading guilty, according to local news station KREM2. Two of the Patriot Front members have had their charges dismissed.

Patriot Front champions the establishment of a whites-only nation and it shows up for demonstrations advocating a variety of far-right stances, including abhorrence of Jewish people, opposition to LGBT rights and campaigning against legal abortions, according to the ADL. Patriot Front was established in 2017 and has organized protests in cities across the nation ever since. The members wear khakis and blue shirts, while often concealing their faces with white masks. And it’s those face coverings that have enabled the conspiracy theory that they’re genuinely a group of federal agents to propagate online.

Right wing influencers on X persistently contend that Patriot Front is a counterfeit group, with many suggesting the goal is to sow discord and racial animosity among Americans. Jesse Kelly, a right-wing radio host, made declarations on Saturday that are representative of the belief that Patriot Front couldn’t possibly be an authentic group operating in the U.S., despite a long history of racist organizations in this country, from the Ku Klux Klan to the German-American Bund.

“The story isn’t that these are feds. Everyone knows that by now. The story is, as it often is, why? Why would the feds run an op like this? Ask yourself that question. You won’t like the answers,” Kelly tweeted on Saturday.

All the available evidence points to Patriot Front being a very real hate group with very real members, as we learned after the arrests in Idaho. And until other evidence is presented, there’s no reason to believe they have any other motivation than to create an all-white country that’s hostile to anyone who stands in their way.

Elon Musk didn’t respond to questions emailed to X on Saturday. I’ll update this post if I hear back.