Elon Musk is facing backlash after making a "joke" about the lack of assassination attempts against President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris.
In a now-deleted X post, Musk appeared to question why the Biden-Harris administration didn't receive more assassination threats after news broke of a second attempt against former President Donald Trump on Sunday (September 15).
The FBI said Trump was playing golf at his West Palm Beach club before Secret Service opened fire against a gunman with a rifle roughly 300 to 500 yards away from the former president. Trump was rushed to a safe location and unharmed. The suspect, Ryan Wesley Routh, appeared in court on Monday (September 16).
Musk responded to an X user who asked, "Why they want to kill Donald Trump?”
"And no one is even trying to assassinate Biden/Kamala,” the Tesla CEO tweeted with a thinking face emoji.
Amid widespread backlash, Musk, who has 197.8 million listed followers on X, deleted his tweet but later defended his comments, saying he was joking.
“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 tweeted.
“Turns out that jokes are WAY less funny if people don’t know the context and the delivery is plain text,” he added in a follow-up tweet.
In a statement on Monday (September 16). the White House condemned Musk's comments.
“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,’” White House spokesperson Andrew Bates said. “Violence should only be condemned, never encouraged or joked about. This rhetoric is irresponsible.”
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