Elon Musk drew fierce backlash on his own X (formerly Twitter) platform for what was slammed as an “appalling and indefensible” response to an apparent second attempt on the life of former president and current Republican nominee Donald Trump.
Trump was, per the FBI, the subject of “what appears to be an attempted assassination” at his golf club in Florida on Sunday, some nine weeks after he was shot during a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania.
Musk posted: “And no one is even trying to assassinate Biden/Kamala.”
The billionaire, who has 197 million followers, added a thinking-face emoji.
The criticism came fast as Musk ― who has endorsed Trump’s 2024 campaign ― was accused of stoking division and inflaming tensions.
Musk later deleted the post.
He explained: “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.”
“Turns out that jokes are WAY less funny if people don’t know the context and the delivery is plain text,” he added.
Musk did not elaborate on who was in the group that he initially told the “joke” to and who he said had found it “hilarious.”
Musk’s explanation went down as badly as his alleged “joke” did.
Here’s how commenters responded to the initial comment:
And here’s how they reacted to his explainer: