Hours after the FBI arrested a man who was carrying an AK-47 outside of Mar-a-Lago, Elon Musk posted something on X he would later come to regret.
“And no one is even trying to assassinate Biden/ Kamala 🤔,” Musk said in a now-deleted post.
It was the kind of dumb and reactionary thing lots of people post online in the wake of a horrific breaking news story. The kind of dumb thing anyone could rattle off without thinking about it. But Musk isn’t just anyone. A lot of his money comes from government contracts. He has a security clearance. This is the kind of post that, should it come up during a clearance review, would typically see the poster lose such privileges.
“I had a security clearance for most of my adult life. If I had said something like this, I would’ve lost it instantly. And yet this guy is still a major government contractor,” Tom Nichols, a retired professor of the U.S. Naval War College turned The Atlantic contributor, said in a post on X.
For Musk, it was all a big joke. “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,” he said in one follow up post. “Turns out that jokes are WAY less funny if people don’t know the context and the delivery is plain text.”
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
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) September 16, 2024
Turns out that jokes are WAY less funny if people don’t know the context and the delivery is plain text
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) September 16, 2024
This wouldn’t be the first time Musk risked his security clearance doing dumb shit in public. The Pentagon reviewed the SpaceX CEO’s clearance in 2019 after he appeared on Joe Rogan and smoked weed. The Pentagon said it reviewed his clearance again in 2024 following a story in the Wall Street Journal about his drug use.
As the world learned more about the attempt on Trump’s life, Musk continued to post on X. “The Carousel of destiny spins ever faster,” he posted at 3:49 a.m. EST.
The carousel of destiny spins ever faster
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) September 16, 2024
By 5 a.m., things had settled and he was posting bland pronatalist content. “Wow, almost twice as many people died as there were babies born in Greece,” Musk said in a post, retweeting a post from serial fabulist Mario Nawfal about declining population in Europe.
Musk’s timeline had healed, but it was still rotten.
