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There are many reasons Elon Musk is a danger. The list is long.
In May, he posted a disgraceful conspiracy theory about a mass shooter in Allen, Texas. He tweeted that George Soros, often a target of right-wingers and white nationalists, wants to “erode the very fabric of civilization” and “hates humanity.” He tweeted an anti-LGBTQ conspiracy theory about the attack on Paul Pelosi. In the first 24 hours after Musk purchased Twitter last year, the Anti-Defamation League said over 1,200 tweets and retweets spread antisemitism. The Washington Post reported use of the N-word increased 500 percent on Twitter after he took over the site. Can’t say if Musk is racist but racists think he is.
“Soros often is held up by the far-right, using antisemitic tropes, as the source of the world’s problems,” tweeted Jonathan Greenblatt, head of the ADL. “To see Elon Musk, regardless of his intent, feed this segment — comparing him to a Jewish supervillain, claiming Soros ‘hates humanity’ — is not just distressing, it’s dangerous: it will embolden extremists who already contrive anti-Jewish conspiracies and have tried to attack Soros and Jewish communities as a result.”
Learn moreBronny James, cardiac arrest and young athletes: What you need to know
Musk has also given a gigantic platform to Robert F. Kennedy Jr., another dangerous anti-vaxxer, who once claimed COVID somehow spared Ashkenazi Jews and people of Chinese descent. Which, when you really think about it, really, really think about it, is one of the dumbest things ever stated.
The list of awful and dangerous things Musk has said, or encouraged, goes on and on and on…
But there’s one thing he did recently that was particularly cruel, particularly conspiratorial, particularly ugly and it’s his remarks after news broke that Bronny James had suffered a cardiac arrest.
Musk didn’t tweet (or X or whatever the hell it’s called now) support for the James family the way a civilized person would. The way many did. He didn’t show empathy. Musk instead wrote: “We cannot ascribe everything to the vaccine, but, by the same token, we cannot ascribe nothing.” He added that, “Myocarditis is a known side-effect” of the COVID-19 vaccine.
James was hospitalized Monday during practice at the University of Southern California. He received treatment from USC’s medical and athletic staff, the family announced. You can imagine the worry of the family over their son. A civilized person certainly would. Musk instead used James’ potentially life-threatening situation as an excuse to continue his deep dive into conspiracies and dangerous behavior.
When Musk was fact-checked on his own tweet, that fact-check was later removed. The Yale School of Medicine says the chance of developing myocarditis following a vaccine is rare.
Musk wasn’t alone in cruelly using James to make a point. Fox News host Martha MacCallum said without evidence that James suffered “myocarditis” and it was “a side effect of the vaccine.”
Fox host Laura Ingraham jumped into the cesspool, too. “Well, today, Elon Musk was pilloried for suggesting that the COVID shot might have had something to do with what happened to Bronny,” she said. “Now, he may be completely wrong. It’s speculation. But we do know that myocarditis is a side-effect of the vaccine and given everything the so-called experts got wrong during COVID, we shouldn’t condemn anyone who is asking questions as these cases seem to be accelerating.”
Listen, we’re just asking questions, dude.
No, Musk wasn’t alone in spreading misinformation about James, but he’s the most powerful of all the conspiratorial people to jump into this case.
This is one of the dangers that Musk presents. He pushes out lies to hundreds of millions of followers and either is ignorant about the facts, or doesn’t care about them, and feeds conspiratorial trolls.
He’s also something else. When you are consistently cruel as he is, you lower the threshold of what cruelty means. People who, unbelievably, think of Musk as a leader will follow his example.
Musk and his followers wallow in the hate and cruelty and misinformation that they all not only create but maintain. Like a mechanized system that keeps a sewer flowing.
Musk using James to spread propaganda isn’t a shock but it’s still disturbing and dangerous and is another indicator of where we are as a society. There’s a segment of us that looks at James and doesn’t see him as a human being that deserves empathy and basic respect. Musk’s first instinct was to use James as a tool to spread misinformation.
There are many reasons Elon Musk is a danger. The list is long.
Just add this to the pile.
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