Olivia Wilde recently appeared on “The Louis Theroux Podcast” and criticized Elon Musk while also speaking out against misogynistic incel culture in general. The director and star of “The Invite” revealed that she once visited Musk’s SpaceX headquarters and met the business mogul long “before he became a creature.”

“Now I really resent it. I resent it deeply,” Wilde said. “I met him many, many years ago. I think SpaceX had just built their headquarters in Los Angeles and I had to go on a tour because I wanted to see the rockets. He was interested in donating money to an organization I was a part of in Haiti that was building hospitals and schools. I think he donated a little bit of money, and that’s appreciated. It confused me. I never would have predicted he would go down the path he’s taken. He seemed really smart.”

Wilde noted how Musk has perpetuated some of incel culture’s most disturbing ideologies, particularly the belief that men are more powerful than nature. The filmmaker noted how Musk connects with this mentality by “talking about how we don’t have enough people and the world is depopulated and we could handle another billion people.” Musk often expresses his belief that humanity faces an imminent “underpopulation crisis,” arguing that it is a greater threat than global warming.

During the “Don’t Worry Darling” press tour in fall 2022, Wilde drew attention to incel culture when he said he based Chris Pine’s villain character on author and commentator Jordan Peterson, whom Wilde referred to as “this pseudo-intellectual hero of the incel community.” Peterson later broke down in tears during an interview with Piers Morgan in reaction to Wilde’s statement.

Wilde defined incels at the time as “disenfranchised men, mostly white, who believe they have the right to receive sex from women. And they believe that society has now robbed them, that the idea of ​​feminism goes against nature, and that we need to put ourselves back in the right place.”

Speaking now on Theroux’s podcast, Wilde admitted that “it might have been unfair for me to call [Peterson] a pseudo-intellectual” because “he obviously thinks deeply about things, but I feel like he operates in a way that is a restricted version of the kind of thinkers that lead to the Andrew Tates of the world. “There are different layers to that community, some of which speak more clearly to the points that are really filtering.”

“My problem with Peterson is that many people who are not in any way misogynistic have adopted this sanitized version of the same philosophy that is rooted in deep misogyny and weaponized by the incel community,” Wilde continued. “The bottom line is the right to power. That’s something that a lot of men are struggling with… I was disturbed by what I saw as this misogyny that was being weaponized and that led us to elect Donald Trump twice and more, that just empowers these groups of people that I think are dangerous.”

When asked in 2022 why Wilde’s comment moved him so much, Peterson fought back tears and said, “It’s really something to see: constantly how many people die for want of a word of encouragement and how easy it is to give it if you’re careful.”

Wilde told Theroux that she was more or less dumbfounded by this comment, explaining, “The ‘lack of a word of encouragement’ is so absurd. There is a big, booming word of encouragement going on all the time for these men, which is, ‘This world is yours and you have a right to it.’ That is deeply ingrained in our society. This idea that they need a reminder of encouragement and deserve more is ridiculous.”

Listen to Wilde’s full interview on “The Louis Theroux Podcast” here.