Overnight, US President Donald Trump met with South African President Cyril Ramaphosa in the Oval Office. The encounter was filmed and although not quite as fiery as Trump’s run-in with Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, there was visible tension in the air when Trump used the opportunity to accuse South Africa and Ramaphosa of being complicit in murdering white farmers.

You may be wondering why Trump met with Ramaphosa and what is this so called “white genocide” that Trump kept bringing up? Well, let us explain.

What is this “white genocide” that Trump is claiming is happening in South Africa?

This idea of a genocide targeting white South African farmers has been floating around right-wing social media for some time now, and has been bought up into the media again following Trump’s meeting with President Ramaphosa. Trump’s claims of a “white genocide” have been regarded as completely false and has been disproven by the South African court, which called the claims “clearly imagined”.

Head of the Department of Government Efficiency and Trumps right-hand man, Elon Musk, is South African born and still holds citizenship to the country. Musk has previously claimed that South Africa has “racist ownership laws” and that the government is complicit in allowing a “white genocide”. Musk shared that his internet service provider company, ‘Starlink’ cannot get license to operate in South Africa, “simply” because he is “not black”. In order for Starlink to operate South Africa, it would need to obtain network and licences that both require 30 percent ownership by historically disadvantaged groups.

So, who are these white South Africans? There are a group of South Africans called ‘Afrikaners’ who are of Dutch heritage and are predominantly white who colonised South Africa in the 1600s. Up until the end of the apartheid in 1994, this group of Afrikaners dominated politics and created segregation between white and non-white South Africans. During the Apartheid non-white South Africans were denied the right the vote, education, housing and employment. Post Apartheid, many South African farmers are Afrikaners.

While murder levels are high in South Africa, there is no data that concurs that these murders are racially driven. According to the BBC, of the 6,953 killed in South Africa between October and December of 2024, 12 were killed in farm attacks. Of these 12 farm attacks, one was a farmer, while five were farm dwellers and four were employees—who are assumed to be black.

How has South Africa responded?

During the meeting with Trump, Ramaphosa shut down any of Trump’s attempts that claims of a genocide.

When a journalist asked Trump what it would take for him to be convinced that there is no white genocide in South Africa, Ramaphosa stepped in to answer the question.

“It will take President Trump listening to the voices of South Africans, some of whom are his good friends, like those who are here. When we have talks between us around a quiet table, it will take President Trump to listen to them,” he said.

Also during the pair’s meeting in the Oval Office, Trump showed Ramaphosa and his delegates a video that Trump alleges depicted white farmers being “persecuted” in South Africa. The video featured thousands of crosses that lined a road, supposedly marking burial spots for white farmers. Ramaphosa asked Trump where this video was taken.

“I’d like to know where that is. Because this I’ve never seen,” Ramaphosa said.

Trump simply replied, “South Africa, that’s where”.

Is it true that the USA accepted refugees from South Africa this month?

Yes, despite his cut-throat stance on immigration, Trump granted at least 49 white South African’s refugee status in the USA earlier this month.

In January, Trump suspended the refugee settlement programme, which left 100,000 people who had already been approved for refugee settlement abandoned. Despite this, he still signed an executive order that allowed this group of Afrikaners immigrate to the country.

Why was Grok talking about it on X/Twitter last week?

Last week, Grok, X’s AI chatbot, was found to be continuously bringing up this South African “white genocide” in completely unrelated prompts. When asked why, Grok told X users that it had been “instructed by its creators” that the “genocide is real and racially motivated”.

Days later, on statement posted to X, xAI wrote that “an unauthorized modification was made to the Grok response bot’s prompt on X”.

“This change, which directed Grok to provide a specific response on a political topic, violated xAI’s internal policies and core values. We have conducted a thorough investigation and are implementing measures to enhance Grok’s transparency and reliability”, it wrote.

Photo: by ITU Pictures is available here and used under a Creative Commons licence.