Category World News

Amid intensifying protests in Iran, the world’s richest man has weighed in.

On January 4, Elon Musk, the multi-billionaire owner of social media platform X, responded to a post by Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei that said “we will not give in to the enemy” by suggesting in Farsi that he was delusional.

Then, on Saturday, Musk’s platform X changed the Iranian flag emoji on the site from the one used since the Islamic revolution in 1979 to the pre-revolution flag featuring a lion and sun.

Some demonstrators inside and outside of Iran have waved the pre-1979 flag as a protest against the current regime.

Musk’s moves have gained some support from critics of the regime in Tehran. However, analysts debate the extent to which such moves can have an impact on the ground in Iran.

What’s behind the protests?

Protests in Iran began on December 28 amid soaring inflation in the country. They’ve since spread to more than 100 cities and towns, and are now reportedly taking place in every province in the country.

“The focus of the protests is on the core of the state and governance of the country because political, economic, social, cultural, or even environmental policies have not worked for [protesters],” Negar Mortazavi, a senior fellow at the Center for International Policy, told Al Jazeera. “Economics, though, was the start of it.”

Many of the protesters are calling for an end to the rule of the country’s ayatollahs who, along with their Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), took over after the 1979 revolution.

Khamenei, the current supreme leader, has led the country since 1989. And while his rule has survived a number of waves of unrest, including the mass “Women, Life, Freedom” protests of 2022, some analysts believe that the latest demonstrations are among the biggest challenges his regime has faced.

“The Trump administration’s decision to quit the Iran nuclear deal in 2018 and reimpose sanctions – and its failure to reach a new deal with Iran last year – have crippled the economy and increased corruption, benefitting a small sanctions-busting elite,” said Barbara Slavin, a distinguished fellow at the Stimson Center in Washington and a lecturer in international affairs at George Washington University.

“Add to that the severe blows inflicted on Iran’s regional allies since October 7, 2023, the Israeli and US strikes last summer, and it is hard to see a way out [for the regime].”

The Iranian regime has enforced an internet blackout in the country since Thursday, though some videos have still managed to circulate online of masked protesters clashing with security forces in Iranian cities.

The semiofficial news agency Tasnim reported on Sunday that the number of security personnel killed has reached 109. Opposition activists say the death toll is higher and includes dozens of protesters.

Al Jazeera cannot independently verify the figures coming out of Iran.

Meanwhile, US President Donald Trump has threatened to intervene if the authorities kill more protesters.

Enter Elon

Musk, a longtime tech mogul heading US government-supported companies including Tesla and SpaceX, left a role with the Trump administration, where he led the so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), in late May.

Musk’s work with DOGE was widely criticised, though his purchase of social media platform X and vocal support for racist policies have also attracted widespread condemnation in recent years.

Today, Musk is more focused on his private businesses, though he still wades into politics from time to time, particularly to push right-wing conspiracy theories about “white genocide” and immigration.

As for Iran, during the 2022 “Women, Life, Freedom” protests and again in 2025’s 12-Day War – which killed more than 610 people in Iran and 28 in Israel – Musk provided internet access to people inside the country through his satellite service Starlink.

Iran has reportedly jammed Starlink signals during the latest protests.

“The state uses internet disruption and shutdown to prevent more mobilisation of protesters and communication between protest groups and also to prevent news of it spreading,” Mortazavi said.

“It still happens with a delay when the internet comes back on, but what it does is hamper mobilisation and slows down the process of the protests. That’s the first goal of a comms shutdown.”

This is where Starlink can be particularly useful. But analysts say Musk responding to Khamenei’s post and changing the flag on X are not likely driven by ideology.

“I doubt he cares about Iran per se,” said Slavin. “But he wants to gin up more traffic for X, and this is one way to do it.”

How useful are Musk’s latest interventions?

The change of Iran’s flag on X came amid the internet blackout, so many protesters on the ground were likely unable to see it. Some Iranian officials, however, were briefly viewed by those outside the country with the pre-Islamic Republic flags in their account profiles.

“It’s a digital version of conquering a building and pulling down the old flag, and trying to put a new flag, that was essentially the symbolising they were going for,” historian Reza H Akbari, who is also an analyst on Iran at the Institute for War and Peace Reporting, told Al Jazeera.

“The power of these types of moves are quite readily contested in mid- and long-term effects,” said Akbari. “But it could provide momentary excitement [for protesters on the ground if they can see it] though it’s very hard to gauge the amount of popular support.”

Slavin told Al Jazeera that “what is happening outside Iran is not that relevant” to what is taking place inside the country.

“The real struggle for freedom is among Iranians is still in Iran, not the diaspora or others interested in the topic,” she said.

“They can amplify developments within Iran and express support for human rights, but we cannot determine the outcome of the struggle.”

A ‘contentious’ flag

Meanwhile, Akbari says the pre-1979 flag “has always been contentious, essentially as a symbol for opposition both inside the country and abroad”.

He added that while the flag may mean different things to different critics of the current Iranian government, it is often associated with “the opposition that identifies as monarchist or wants the return of the shah”, who was deposed in 1979.

During recent protests, the ousted shah’s son, Reza Pahlavi, called on demonstrators to take to the streets and occupy Iranian cities.

Some protesters, including those outside Iran, have called for a return to rule by the shah, despite his questionable popularity. Akbari said that Pahlavi himself has offered to act as a transitional leader but is not looking to move permanently to Iran to rule the country.

Analysts agree that Pahlavi would not be the man to lead the country forward, should Iran’s Islamic Republic fall after 47 years in power.

“Today, there are many decent and capable people in Iran who could replace those in power. Unfortunately, most of them are in prison,” Slavin said.

United States President Donald Trump says no more Venezuelan oil or money will go to Cuba, and he has suggested the communist-run island should strike a deal with Washington, ramping up pressure on the longtime US nemesis.

Venezuela is Cuba’s biggest oil supplier, but no cargo has departed from Venezuelan ports to the Caribbean country since the abduction of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro by US forces on January 3 amid a strict US oil blockade on the OPEC country, according to the latest shipping data.

“THERE WILL BE NO MORE OIL OR MONEY GOING TO CUBA – ZERO! I strongly suggest they make a deal, BEFORE IT IS TOO LATE,” Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform on Sunday.

“Cuba lived, for many years, on large amounts of OIL and MONEY from Venezuela,” Trump added.

Trump did not elaborate on his suggested deal, but US officials have hardened their rhetoric against Cuba in recent weeks.

Earlier on Sunday, Trump also reposted a message on Truth Social suggesting US Secretary of State Marco Rubio could become the president of communist-ruled Cuba.

Trump shared that post with the comment: “Sounds good to me!”

Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel rejected Trump’s threats in a post on X.

“Cuba is a free, independent, and sovereign nation. Nobody dictates what we do,” Diaz-Canel said.

“Cuba does not attack; it has been attacked by the US for 66 years, and it does not threaten; it prepares, ready to defend the homeland to the last drop of blood.”

Earlier, Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez insisted “right and justice are on Cuba’s side”.

The US “behaves like an out-of-control criminal hegemon that threatens peace and security, not only in Cuba and this hemisphere, but throughout the entire world”, Rodriguez posted on X.

Rodriguez also said in a separate post on X that Cuba had the right to import fuel from any suppliers willing to export it. He also denied that Cuba had received financial or other “material” compensation in return for security services provided to any country.

Reporting from Cucuta, Colombia, Al Jazeera’s Alessandro Rampietti said that, despite its defiant rhetoric, Cuba may struggle to find alternative sources of fuel.

“Cuba is going through a very, very difficult situation with rolling blackouts, fuel shortages on a daily basis,” he said.

He added that an oil embargo from the US could worsen and could pressurise Havana to reach a deal with Washington.

Under a US trade embargo, Havana since 2000 has increasingly relied on Venezuelan oil provided as part of a deal struck with Maduro’s predecessor Hugo Chavez.

As its operational refining capacity dwindled in recent years, Venezuela’s supply of crude and fuel to Cuba has fallen. But the South American country is still the largest provider with about 26,500 barrels per day exported last year, according to ship-tracking data and internal documents of Venezuela’s state-run oil company, PDVSA. Venezuela’s shipments covered roughly 50 percent of Cuba’s oil deficit.

Cuba also relies on imported crude and fuel provided by Mexico in smaller volumes.

Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum last week said her country had not increased supply volumes but, given recent political events in Venezuela, Mexico had turned into an “important supplier” of crude to Cuba.

Meanwhile, amid Trump’s threats to Cuba, Al Jazeera’s Patty Culhane said Americans generally want Trump to focus on the domestic economy.

“There is an affordability crisis in this country, groceries are expensive, housing is expensive, health insurance has gone up,” she said, reporting from Washington, DC.