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Elon Musk and Donald Trump are buddy-buddy now. Elon has even joined Trump in his penchant for inspiring extremist violence.

Not long after alarming reports surfaced of a second alleged assassination attempt on former US president and 2024 Republican nominee Trump, Musk chimed in.

“And no one is even trying to assassinate Biden/Kamala,” Musk, X’s owner, wrote in a now-deleted post, in response to another person asking, “Why they want to kill Donald Trump?”

Since this silly remark could be interpreted as a call to murder President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris, Elon promptly deleted the post.

Musk admitted that the ‘joke’ fell flat given the context:

“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 ,” he wrote, adding, “Turns out that jokes are WAY less funny if people don’t know the context and the delivery is plain text.”

This incident is just the latest in a string of increasingly inflammatory political statements from Musk, whose significant defence contracts with the US government might grant him access to highly sensitive information — all while he seemingly flirts with making veiled threats against the sitting commander-in-chief.

More alarmingly, Musk’s escalating rhetoric highlights a deeper, more immediate danger: the potential to fuel further political violence, Wired notes. If he hasn’t already, Musk might get some attention from federal law enforcement.

“In my experience, the Secret Service would take such a comment very seriously,” says Michael German, a former FBI special agent and a liberty and national security fellow at NYU School of Law’s Brennan Center for Justice. “Typically, agents would go out and interview the subject to ensure that there wasn’t an existing threat, and to make the subject aware that the agency takes such statements seriously.”

German notes that it’s possible the FBI could also launch an investigation, although, it won’t necessarily mean that Musk will face any charges for his post.

“On its face, the tweet would not meet the ‘true threat’ test, in that it wasn’t a direct threat to do harm to the vice president, so it wouldn’t likely proceed to prosecution,” German says. Still, “it would create a record of the investigations.”

The White House called out Musk’s post, saying “Violence should only be condemned, never encouraged or joked about. This rhetoric is irresponsible.”

Where things become even more precarious for Musk is his pivotal role as a top contractor for the US Department of Defense and NASA. In 2021, SpaceX inked a $1.8 billion deal with the National Reconnaissance Office, which oversees America’s spy satellites, according to Reuters. Adding to this, the US Space Force awarded SpaceX a $70 million contract late last year to bolster military-grade low-earth-orbit satellite capabilities. Meanwhile, Starlink, SpaceX’s commercial satellite internet division, is actively providing connectivity for the US Navy.

Basically, the US government’s deep reliance on Musk-controlled companies has repeatedly raised alarms among national security experts, sparking growing concern over the potential risks this entanglement poses.

Pentagon concerns escalated last September when Musk refused Ukraine’s request to activate Starlink in Crimea for an attack on Russian forces, citing US sanctions, despite Starlink not being under a military contract at the time. On top of that, Musk’s October 2022 acquisition of Twitter (now X) sparked concerns among experts about potential national security risks, given his ties to the Chinese government, alleged outreach to Russian President Vladimir Putin (which he denies), and Saudi Arabia’s ongoing investment in Twitter post-buyout.

Others voiced concerns that China might hold leverage over Musk due to his connections with Beijing stemming from Tesla, his electric car company, which operates a factory in Shanghai.

This is all a lot more hectic when considering how he reactivated the accounts of conspiracy theorists and white nationalists and began heavily pushing his own right-wing political narrative all over his platform.

In the wake of the first assassination attempt on Trump in mid-July, Musk publicly endorsed him and allegedly promised $45 million per month to support a pro-Trump PAC, a commitment he later claimed he did not make.

Musk’s status as the world’s richest man and most famous chief executive makes it tricky to pull his security clearance regardless of his flippant discussions of political assassinations.

“That the owner of a major social media platform—and US government contractor—is opining on the assassination of political opponents should be alarming for Americans across the political spectrum,” said Jon Lewis, a research fellow at George Washington University’s Program on Extremism.

Extremists are waiting for the justification to engage in violence, he adds, and rhetoric like this provides the perfect excuse.

See what free speech can do?

[source:wired]