Elon Musk, who owns the social media platform X and is a high-profile backer of former president Donald Trump, said in an interview that it would be \u201cpointless\u201d to try to assassinate Vice President Kamala Harris \u2014 once again publicly airing questions about why no one has tried to kill her or President Joe Biden during a stretch in which Trump has faced two apparent attempts on his life.<\/p>\n
Musk first raised the issue in a social media post last month that drew the attention of the Secret Service and that he later deleted amid a backlash. But in an interview with former Fox News host Tucker Carlson that was published on social media Monday, the Tesla CEO revisited the topic as the two laughed about the premise of the post.<\/p>\n
\u201cI made a joke, which I realized \u2014 I deleted \u2014 which is like: Nobody\u2019s even bothering to try to kill Kamala because it\u2019s pointless,\u201d Musk said. \u201cWhat do you achieve?\u201d<\/p>\n
Musk suggested Harris would be replaced with \u201canother puppet\u201d if she were killed. He added: \u201cNobody\u2019s tried to kill Joe Biden. It\u2019d be pointless.\u201d<\/p>\n
Seemingly unaware of the initial controversy, Carlson asked Musk whether he had actually raised that question on social media. Musk acknowledged he did and addressed the controversy over it.<\/p>\n
\u201cSome people interpreted it as though I was calling for people to assassinate her, but I was like \u2026 Does it seem strange that no one\u2019s even bothered?\u201d Musk said. \u201cNobody tries to assassinate a puppet.\u201d<\/p>\n
Musk promoted the Carlson interview on his X account, calling it an \u201coff-the-cuff conversation.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Secret Service said it was familiar with Musk\u2019s remarks in the interview but declined to comment further.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Secret Service is aware of the comments made by Elon Musk and as a matter of practice, we do not comment on matters involving protective intelligence,\u201d Alexi Worley, a spokesperson for the agency, wrote in an email.<\/p>\n
Trump and other Republicans have called for more civility \u2014 particularly from Democrats \u2014 in the wake of the assassination attempts. During a campaign rally Saturday in Butler, Pa. \u2014 the site of the attempt on Trump\u2019s life in July \u2014 the former president suggested his political opponents could have caused the shooting, while his running mate, Sen. JD Vance (Ohio), accused Democrats of using inflammatory rhetoric.<\/p>\n
Responding to an X user following the apparent assassination attempt of Trump last month, Musk wrote that \u201cno one is even trying to assassinate Biden\/Kamala.\u201d The comment drew widespread criticism, with the White House condemning it as \u201cirresponsible\u201d rhetoric. The Secret Service said it was \u201caware\u201d of the post.<\/p>\n
Musk initially expressed resistance to deleting the X post, but then did so and suggested it was a joke.<\/p>\n
\u201cWell, one lesson I\u2019ve learned is that just because I say something to a group and they laugh doesn\u2019t mean it\u2019s going to be all that hilarious as a post on [X],\u201d Musk said. \u201cTurns out that jokes are way less funny if people don\u2019t know the context and the delivery is plain text.\u201d<\/p>\n
Musk has more than 200 million followers on X.<\/p>\n
Despite Musk\u2019s questioning, authorities have arrested multiple people after they allegedly made death threats against Harris and Biden. A Virginia man was charged in August with making violent threats against Harris in online forums. Federal prosecutors said he also made thousands of posts targeting Biden and other public officials.<\/p>\n
Musk endorsed Trump moments after the assassination attempt on the former president in July. Musk has gotten increasingly involved in the campaign in recent weeks, speaking at Trump\u2019s return to Butler on Saturday and supporting a super PAC that is spending tens of millions of dollars to get out the vote for Trump.<\/p>\n
Musk told Carlson he is \u201call in\u201d on Trump.<\/p>\n
Trump has promised to appoint Musk to lead a government efficiency commission if Trump returns to the White House.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Elon Musk, who owns the social media platform X and is a high-profile backer of former president Donald Trump, said in an interview that it would be \u201cpointless\u201d to try to assassinate Vice President Kamala Harris \u2014 once again publicly airing questions about why no one has tried to kill her or President Joe Biden […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":10764,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10763","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10763","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10763"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10763\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10764"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10763"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10763"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10763"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}