Elon Got Me Banned From Effective Altruism. Now I'm Back–and It's Great!

In 2015, I was banned from Effective Altruism (EA) Global because of Elon Musk.

The conference had switched its menu from vegan to non-vegan, including meat. Insiders shared with us that this was done at Elon’s request. (He was a keynote speaker at the conference and well known for his taste for meat.) While other vegans were outraged by this decision, I had a different reaction.

“I honestly think this is an opportunity,” I wrote in an EA Facebook group. “‘EAs get into fight with Elon Musk over eating animals’ is a great story line that would travel well on both social and possibly mainstream media.” I thought even Elon would benefit from a fight. He could use a protest to show he was a moderate pushing back against woke vegans.

Many people in the EA group, however, did not take well to my suggestion. The future crypto billionaire Sam Bankman-Fried, among others, argued that “yelling” at Elon would backfire. Others were even more forceful, describing my suggestion as “disastrously bad” because of Elon’s “enormous value” to the EA movement. I did not spend much time thinking about the debate, as I didn’t actually care that much about the menu at EAG, or about Elon’s diet. But I was surprised when I subsequently was denied entry into the conference that year, and for years thereafter.

EA, it seemed, had chosen Elon over me.

“Probably a reasonable decision,” I chuckled to myself. But I was still annoyed. I stopped organizing EA meetups in the Bay Area.

This year, for the first time in a decade, I’m back in EAG. I was admitted to the conference in both London and NYC in 2025. I’m still not entirely sure what changed. But what’s perhaps even more surprising is that I really enjoyed the experience.

This is partly because of my own growth. Back in 2015, when I wrote that we should protest Elon and the organizers of EAG, I didn’t have the common sense to reach out to them privately before stating publicly that we should consider a protest. I like to think my judgment has improved since then, which may explain why I’ve been allowed back in!

But it’s also partly because of significant changes in EA that have made the movement stronger in the last 10 years. Here are some of the big ones.

Viewpoint diversity. EA back in 2015 felt like it could not handle large differences of opinion, especially if they were driven by ethical concerns. Too many people (including Elon) might feel threatened by those disagreements. But EA has become a much more diverse space as the movement has matured. For example, I met many people at EAG this year who believe AI is a great thing for the world; others see it as an existential threat to all life on earth.

Embrace of systemic change. The biggest substantive difference in the last 10 years is that EA now fully embraces so-called systemic approaches to animal advocacy. Back in 2015, the dominant approaches in EA focused mostly on changing individual behavior, e.g., trying to convince people to go vegan. Now, partly due to the work of Open Philanthropy, EA has embraced institutional approaches to the same problems. This has made space for activists such as me, who have long been critics of individual change.

Elevation of animal causes. The entire conference in both London and NYC this year was vegan — and there was not even much of a debate. And animal advocacy is pretty clearly the second-largest priority, a notch below AI safety. This is a big shift from 2015, when animals felt like an afterthought.

Moral humility. EA back in 2015 always had a flavor of the smartest kid in the room. We thought we were smarter than everyone who was not an EA. Perhaps due to the crisis caused by the fall of SBF, that has changed. The culture of EA is more curious, humble, and morally-grounded. For example, numerous people shared with me this year that their commitments to EA were shaped in part by religious faith. I think that would have been mocked back in 2015. In 2025, it was just an invitation to understand more.

This is not to say that I have no criticisms of EA. I still think, for example, there is far too much emphasis on abstract thought experiments, and not enough on evidence. I also find the animal advocacy in EA spaces strangely lacking in ambition. But it also seems clear to me that the movement has evolved in positive ways. Indeed, I would argue it has not just survived the blow caused by SBF but has strengthened. Only time will tell if this continues, of course. But in a world that often seems lacking in shared moral purpose, EA is filling a crucial need.