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.Recommended Stories list of 3 itemsend of listThen, 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 …
