Elon Musk, owner of social media platform X and CEO of Tesla and SpaceX, deleted a post referencing assassinations of President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris early Monday morning.
“And no one is even trying to assassinate Biden/Kamala 🤔,” Musk wrote.
Musk's now-deleted X post quoted another X user who commented about what the FBI said "appeared to be an attempted assassination” on former President Donald Trump on Sunday. This would mark the second assassination attempt on Trump after a gunman opened fire at one of his rallies over the summer.
Musk was roundly criticized for his post. Some X users questioned why Musk still has security clearance, a privilege provided to him as CEO of SpaceX.
In follow up posts, Musk initially defended his comment.
"No one has even tried to do so is the point I’m making and no one will," Musk said.
Musk eventually deleted the post. He now claims that the post was a "joke."
Tweet may have been deleted
"Well, one lesson I’ve learned is that just because I say something to a group and they laugh doesn’t mean it’s going to be all that hilarious as a post on 𝕏," Musk posted after deleting his assassination post.
Tweet may have been deleted
"Turns out that jokes are WAY less funny if people don’t know the context and the delivery is plain text," he continued.
Over the years, Musk has increasingly become seeped into right-wing politics and far right conspiracy theories. He announced his open support for former President Donald Trump after the assassination attempt in July.
While Musk has deleted his own post, he has continued to spread conspiracy theories about the reported Trump assassination attempt. Early Monday morning, after taking his post down, Musk boosted another far right-wing account that questioned why other recent presidents had not experienced assassination attempts.
