Elon Musk blames diversity efforts for the widespread CrowdStrike digital pandemic that stunted Microsoft services

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Elon Musk holds diversity policies responsible for CrowdStrike’s global tech meltdown.

Elon Musk
Elon Musk with servers on fire (Image credit: iamnot_elon on X)

What you need to know

  • Microsoft services were recently impacted by a CrowdStrike bug, causing mass outages.
  • While Microsoft and CrowdStrike have issued statements indicating the issue has been fixed, Elon Musk used the opportunity to throw jabs at the latter's diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives.
  • The billionaire and X owner indicated, "We just deleted CrowdStrike from all our systems" during the incident.

On July 19, 2024, the world woke up to a digital pandemic affecting Microsoft services in networking and cloud computing. Experts and analysts referred to the CrowdStrike BSoD as the "biggest IT outage the world has ever seen."

The issue was narrowed down to a faulty CrowdStrike kernel driver, but services have seemingly been restored after Microsoft repaired its Azure servers. CrowdStrike issued a separate statement acknowledging the bug and later confirmed it had issued a fix.

Billionaire and X owner Elon Musk has been vocal about the mass outage affecting Microsoft services while tooting X's horn for remaining functional amid the chaos. Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) initiatives have been on Musk's radar, with the billionaire claiming it is just another word for racism. 

Musk coincidentally replied to a CrowdStrike post on X from 2022, announcing its Gold partnership with Bright Network's panel on diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI). Musk commented on the post by indicating, "Not very 'bright' right now, is it?" Perhaps correlating the mass outage to CrowdStrike's DEI initiatives (via Quartz). 

For context, Elon Musk has been under fire for his views on diversity, especially after indicating that the issues affecting Boeing's 737 Max 9 are directly related to hiring too many non-white pilots and factory workers. 

While speaking to CNN in March, Musk claimed Duke University lowered its standards to foster more diversity. However, the university issued a statement refuting Musk's claims and indicated its standards remain the same and will continue to be based on merit.

While the CrowdStrike BSoD chaos might be behind us, Elon Musk recently shared on X that "we just deleted CrowdStrike from all our systems, so no rollouts at all."

In other DEI news, Microsoft recently dismissed its diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) team due to "changing business needs." In an internal email shared by the team's former lead, Microsoft's top executives were accused of "investigated and evidenced discrimination, harassment, and toxicity." Despite the highlighted changes, the company remains committed to diversity and inclusion initiatives.

Kevin Okemwa
Kevin Okemwa
Contributor

Kevin Okemwa is a seasoned tech journalist based in Nairobi, Kenya with lots of experience covering the latest trends and developments in the industry at Windows Central. With a passion for innovation and a keen eye for detail, he has written for leading publications such as OnMSFT, MakeUseOf, and Windows Report, providing insightful analysis and breaking news on everything revolving around the Microsoft ecosystem. You'll also catch him occasionally contributing at iMore about Apple and AI. While AFK and not busy following the ever-emerging trends in tech, you can find him exploring the world or listening to music.

7 Comments Comment from the forums
  • John McIlhinney
    When you know your target audience cares nothing for evidence, you can make any claim you want.
    Reply
  • Arun Topez
    More tabloid non-sense from WC. Headline stating as fact, article and his posts say otherwise.
    Headline "Elon Musk BLAMES diversity efforts for the widespread CrowdStrike"
    Article: "PERHAPS correlating the mass outage to CrowdStrike's DEI initiatives."
    Reply
  • John McIlhinney
    Arun Topez said:
    More tabloid non-sense from WC. Headline stating as fact, article and his posts say otherwise.
    Headline "Elon Musk BLAMES diversity efforts for the widespread CrowdStrike"
    Article: "PERHAPS correlating the mass outage to CrowdStrike's DEI initiatives."
    You're right. The article was too generous. Of course that's what he was doing. In fact, it seems pretty obvious that he's not even correlating them but implying a definite causal link. He may have worded it vaguely enough as to maintain plausible deniability but it would only be plausible to those who already agree with him. Why else would you dig up a post that's over two years old when something bad has happened if you're not trying to blame the bad thing on the subject of the post? You wouldn't.
    Reply
  • Arun Topez
    John McIlhinney said:
    You're right. The article was too generous. Of course that's what he was doing. In fact, it seems pretty obvious that he's not even correlating them but implying a definite causal link. He may have worded it vaguely enough as to maintain plausible deniability but it would only be plausible to those who already agree with him. Why else would you dig up a post that's over two years old when something bad has happened if you're not trying to blame the bad thing on the subject of the post? You wouldn't.
    What are you even on about? If you follow his feed and replies, you'll see that's not what he "blames" it on. There are multiple topics and issues at hand. Journalism is pretty much dead now thanks to people like you who go along with it, with contradictory wording and misleading clickbait headlines as fact.
    Reply
  • John McIlhinney
    Arun Topez said:
    What are you even on about? If you follow his feed and replies, you'll see that's not what he "blames" it on. There are multiple topics and issues at hand. Journalism is pretty much dead now thanks to people like you who go along with it, with contradictory wording and misleading clickbait headlines as fact.
    What exactly do you think he was trying to convey in that reply then? The original post was over two years old and yet he digs it up now? They say they partnered with DEI specialists and, now that something bad has happened, he says that it wasn't smart to do so. Are you trying to pretend that he's not drawing a causal link there? He doesn't have to explicitly state that it was the only factor to be making an obvious implication that it was a factor. Of course, it may well be that he doesn't even think that it was a factor but he knows that you've just got to say "DEI" these days and it's red meat to the base.
    Reply
  • DylanGreen
    He is correct in saying that choosing race overtop merit WILL lead to a degradation in quality or revenue from customers.

    Of course, there is no proof that it DIRECTLY ties to yesterday's failure. You could only hope to prove it if those responsible for QA were diversity hires.
    Reply
  • Gestalt Grey
    DylanGreen said:
    He is correct in saying that choosing race overtop merit WILL lead to a degradation in quality or revenue from customers.

    Of course, there is no proof that it DIRECTLY ties to yesterday's failure. You could only hope to prove it if those responsible for QA were diversity hires.
    First off, any competent DEI program will advocate AGAINST a "diversity hire". What they advocate for instead is making opportunities attractive to diverse applicants, then hiring more or less as usual. This practice, confusingly, is called "diversity hiring", distinct from a "diversity hire" .
    People into fanning the flames of culture war will purposefully confuse the two. I don't know if Musk knows the difference between the two or if he's ignorant, but he is certainly virtue signaling on the issue and given his cultural influence in the tech sphere, this does make the matter fit for a WC article.
    Reply