Not these days, or at least not in the US. With all the federal cuts has come more public acceptance of openly deploring empathy for people not in your immediate circle. Witness, e.g., Vice President's Vance's widely-discussed comments on the "ordo amoris". Tribalism of this kind is somewhat in vogue. And, more generally, in the rightwing media ecosystem the idea that kindness or empathy is a kind of weakness to be disdained has been bubbling for a long time.

All that is to say, Musk seems like someone who genuinely believes empathy is a problem in general. The way he runs his companies, treats his worker, his own children (the ones he bothers to even be around, anyway), nothing comes across as the behavior of a man who sees any value in empathy for others.

So, to conclude, I think even he knows how distasteful his true views are to most people and so is couching them in terms that are as far as the current climate will let him go in public.