Elon Musk’s post about Trump’s assassination attempt stirs controversy

Elon Musk has proven once again that some things are better left off social media.

The billionaire, who owns social media platform X and runs companies including Tesla (TSLA) and SpaceX, posted some of his thoughts on Sunday the second assassination attempt on former President Donald Trump. Musk APPROVED THE Republican presidential candidate in July after an earlier assassination attempt at a rally in Pennsylvania.

“Why they want to kill Donald Trump,” @cb_doge wrote on X, an account Musk retweets and interacts with often on Sunday. “And no one is even trying to assassinate Biden/Kamala,” Musk responded in one tweet since deletedreferring to the sitting president and vice president, the latter running as the Democratic candidate for president. It was viewed more than 30 million times and garnered 151,000 likes before it was deleted.

Musk later answered in favor of a post by a Tesla influencer calling President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris “the car” and that Trump is “threatening” that car. Also musk he asked “Why do so many people get mad ABOUT the car?” along with a laughing emoji.

In subsequent postsMusk said his post was made in jest, writing that “it turns out that jokes are a LOT less funny if people don’t know the context and the delivery is plain text” and that “just because I say something to a group and they laugh” doesn’t it means it will translate well on social media.

Regardless of his intent, the post drew instant backlash from some on social media. Carl Quintanillaveteran journalist and anchor for CNBC (CMCSA) “Squawk on the Street,” for example, told Musk to delete his account, while The Dispatch editor-in-chief Jonah Goldberg called it “terrible and indefensible.”

“Elon knows this is untrue. Elon has had assassination attempts by disturbed individuals that he has spoken about publicly. One of these individuals also threatened to kill President Biden. he wrote Rohan Patel, Tesla’s former vice president who oversees public policy. “The Secret Service probably foiled many attacks on Biden/Harris that we don’t know about,” adding that he is “really disappointed”.

It’s Musk’s second social media misstep in about a week, coming just days after his own PROVIDED to give Taylor Swift a child after the singer and economic titan supported Harris’ bid for the White House. That post quickly gained traction CONVICTION from her supporters and Democratic-leaning people on social media.

Although this is far from Musk’s biggest social media controversy. That would be when, in 2018, he suggested taking Tesla private at $420 per share, writing “guaranteed financing.” That tweet raised many questions – namely who would fund its sudden push for privatization — and sparked suspicion from the SEC and shareholders.

Subsequent processes it cost Tesla and Musk $40 millionand an SEC settlement forced Musk to step down as Tesla chairman and have his social media posts monitored by lawyers.