Elon Musk has deleted a post on his social media platform X in which he said “no one is even trying to assassinate” U.S. President Joe Biden and Vice-President Kamala Harris in the wake of an apparent assassination attempt on former president Donald Trump while he was playing golf.
Musk, who has nearly 200 million followers on the social media site he bought for US$44 billion in 2022, has increasingly embraced conservative ideologies in recent years and endorsed Trump for president.
While he has removed posts in the past, Musk has also kept up and even doubled down on other such inflammatory comments. Last week, he made a joke about impregnating Taylor Swift after the singer posted an endorsement for Harris.
Early Monday, after taking down the post about the apparent Trump assassination, the 53-year-old billionaire wrote on the platform: “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.”
The original post was in response to DogeDesigner, one of the 700 accounts that Musk follows, who asked: “Why they want to kill Donald Trump?”
Musk’s reply was quickly condemned by many X users, and “DeportElonMusk” began trending on X on Monday morning.
“Violence should only be condemned, never encouraged or joked about,” said White House spokesperson Andrew Bates in response to Musk’s post. “This rhetoric is irresponsible.”
The Tesla CEO has previously posted conspiracy theories and feuded with world leaders and politicians. X is currently banned in Brazil amid a dustup between Musk and a Brazilian Supreme Court judge over free speech, far-right accounts and misinformation.
He’s also received criticism in the past for what critics said were posts encouraging violence.
Last month, for instance, the British government called on Musk to act responsibly after he used X to unleash a barrage of posts that officials said risked inflaming violent unrest gripping the country.
Musk said when he bought the platform then known as Twitter that protecting free speech — not money — was his motivation because, as he put it, “having a public platform that is maximally trusted and broadly inclusive is extremely important to the future of civilization.”
Sarah Kreps, director of Cornell University’s Tech Policy Institute, noted that Musk has long been trying to “push the boundaries of free speech, in part by engaging in impulsive, unfiltered comments on a range of political topics.”
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Associated Press Writer Chris Megerian contributed to this story from Washington