THE STORY
The Secret Service on Monday said it is “aware” of a controversial X Post by Elon Musk, where he said “no one is even trying” to assassinate President Joe Biden or Vice President Kamala Harris amid the apparent assassination attempt on Donald Trump over the weekend.
Musk, who owns X, replied to a user who questioned “Why they want to kill Donald Trump?”. The tech billionaire has been known to elevate conspiracy theories in the past.
“And no one is even trying to assassinate Biden/Kamala 🤔,” Musk wrote in the now-deleted X post.
GOING IN DEPTH
In a statement, the White House condemned the post, saying that “this rhetoric is irresponsible”.
“As President Biden and Vice President Harris said after yesterday’s disturbing news, ‘there is no place for political violence or for any violence ever in our country,’ and ‘we all must do our part to ensure that this incident does not lead to more violence,’” said White House spokesperson Andrew Bates in a statement. “Violence should only be condemned, never encouraged or joked about.”
When asked by Fwrd Axis News, the Secret Service said that it is aware of Musk’s post but did not comment beyond that.
“As a matter of practice we do not comment on matters involving protective intelligence,” the statement said. “We can say, however, that the Secret Service investigates all threats related to our protectees.”
Musk said after deleting the post that he was making a joke but users said it could be misinterpreted.
“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,” he said.
“Turns out that jokes are way less funny if people don’t know the context and the delivery is in plain text,” he added in a follow up post.
