South African billionaire-entrepreneur Johann Rupert, present with President Cyril Ramaphosa at the White House, came to his rescue during a tense Oval Office exchange on Wednesday.

As U.S. President Donald Trump coordinated proceedings, bringing forth articles and videos on alleged White genocide and land seizures in South Africa, the 74-year-old Cape Town-based businessman dismissed the narrative of targeted farm murders plaguing the country. He did, however, highlight its high murder rate.

“We have too many deaths… it’s not only White farmers; it’s across the board,” Rupert told Oval Office attendees.

Also invited and present as Ramaphosa’s guests were golfing icons and South Africans Ernie Els and Retief Goosen. Four-time major champion Els, a long-time golf friend of Trump’s, was the first South African to feature after Ramaphosa. When nominated by the U.S. President to speak, he first declared his pride in being South African before mentioning: “We want to see things get better in our country.”

Business tycoon Rupert was next to speak, and instantly challenged Trump’s assumptions. He pointed out that statistics to show White farming communities are not the primary victims of South Africa’s egregious murder rate, mentioning that it cuts across all ethnicities and socioeconomic classes.

As per an article in Bloomberg, figures attributed to South African Police Service and AfriForum suggest this to be true, that “killing on farms form a small portion of total murders”; that of South Africa’s 27,621 murders in 2024, 55 were farm-related, compared to 43 of 27,494 in 2023 and 50 of 25,181 in 2022.

The Chairman of luxury goods firm Richemont, who is worth $14.7 billion as per Forbes, then diverted his speech to label how Trump’s administration and Elon Musk can help tackle South Africa’s murder issue.

“We need technological help, we need Starlink at every little police station, we need drones… we need your help to stop these awful killings,” Rupert said, also alluding to unemployment in the country as a reason.

“If we don’t get our country to grow, the culture of dependency and the lawlessness will increase… We need your help Sir [Trump], and we need Elon’s [Musk] technology.”

Ramaphosa, calm and walking the diplomatic tightrope, visibly eager to discuss trade and investment, followed up in a bid to renavigate the conversation with little success.

“One of the areas of support needed is in investments to grow our economy… create more jobs, because crime thrives where there is inequality and unemployment,” said the South African President.

“Our main reason for being here is to foster trade and investment so that we’re able to grow our economy and your [U.S.] support to address all these societal problems because criminality thrives when people are unemployed… that is what we need to resolve.”

This meeting was part of a diplomatic effort to address economic and security challenges between the U.S. and South Africa.