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The FBI is investigating what they say appears to be a second attempted assassination of former President Donald Trump.
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Elon Musk then posted a message on X asking why there have been no assassination attempts on Biden or Harris.
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Musk later deleted the post, saying people had taken it as a joke.
Elon Musk is facing widespread criticism after making a controversial comment on his social media platform X, shortly after an alleged second assassination attempt on former President Donald Trump.
In a since-deleted post, Musk questioned why there had been no assassination attempts on President Joe Biden or Vice President Kamala Harris. Musk later said he learned a lesson from the post after an X user told him it was misinterpreted.
The comments came after shots were fired Sunday at Trump’s golf course in West Palm Beach, Florida. The FBI is now investigating what it calls a second attempted assassination of Trump.
Just two months earlier, Trump survived an attempt on his life, when a gunman opened fire at a campaign rally in Pennsylvania.
Musk’s post drew widespread criticism from X.
“If someone takes a shot at Biden or Harris or Walz after two registered Republicans took a shot at Trump and Musk posted this insane tweet, we have to consider Musk’s role in such violence,” AI expert Gary Marcus said in response to Musk’s deleted post. “Elon is not okay.”
Other users condemned the post as “terrible and indefensible”, “irresponsible” and “dangerous”.
Musk is no stranger to sharing controversial comments about X, and some of his posts are seen as part of the reason why advertisers are waiting so long to return X.
Earlier this month, for example, the billionaire deleted an X-post promoting an interview between Tucker Carlson and a man accused of being a “Nazi apologist.”
This time, Musk appears to have acknowledged that he may have gone too far.
Musk initially refused to delete the comment, but later responded to an X user who suggested deleting and rewriting the post because it was being misinterpreted.
“That’s fine. I don’t want to do what they did, even as a joke,” Musk wrote in response.
Musk later said he had learned a lesson from it.
“It turns out that jokes are WAY less funny when people don’t know the context and the message is delivered in plain text,” Musk wrote in a later post.
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 hilarious as a post on 𝕏
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) September 16, 2024
Representatives for Musk, Biden and Harris did not immediately respond to requests for comment sent outside regular business hours.
Musk has endorsed Trump in the 2024 election and has been openly critical of both Harris and Biden. Trump has also floated the idea of having the billionaire in his administration, calling him a “smart” and “brilliant guy.”
Musk has previously expressed interest in joining a commission looking at government efficiency if Trump wins the election.
Read the original article on Business Insider
