by - In a tweet on Sunday, Elon Musk wrote to Dr. He suggested that Anthony Fauci should be prosecuted.
- The tweet is the latest in a series of posts supporting right-wing efforts and conspiracies in recent months.
- Fauci is stepping down as director of the NIH and chief medical adviser to President Biden at the end of the year.
Elon Musk, in a tweet on Sunday, suggested that the nation’s top infectious disease specialist should be put on trial. He punches Anthony Fauci, which further fuels right-wing disinformation.
“My pronouns are Prosecute/Fauci,” Musk wrote on Sunday. in a tweet that’s now viral caused an important reaction.
The assignment comes just hours after Fauci published a column in the New York Times in which he briefed the next generation of scientists, before stepping down as director and President of the National Institutes of Health later this month. Biden’s best medical adviser.
Musk’s tweet also signaled support for the GOP’s efforts to investigate Fauci’s handling of COVID-19 while serving as top medical adviser to former President Donald Trump. Republican leaders, including Senator Rand Paul, have criticized Fauci’s efforts to contain the virus, making false claims that a NIH-funded lab in Wuhan, China, is behind the origin of the coronavirus.
The tweet is the latest in Musk’s last few quotes that reinforce right-wing perspectives and conspiracies. In May, the billionaire Twitter and Tesla CEO wrote on Twitter that Democrats have “become the party of division and hatred” and will “vote for the Republicans.”
Since then, she has encouraged Independent voters to vote for Republican candidates to avoid a Democratic majority, reinforcing a debunked conspiracy that Nancy Pelosi’s husband was assaulted by a lover.
“I think it deliberately empowers right-wing extremists,” says JM Berger, a researcher on social media extremism. He told Insider. “Any argument that he is trying to strengthen the center is blatant nonsense and should be treated as such.”
The tweet also came after Musk had drawn anger for making fun of gender pronouns earlier. In December 2020, the Human Rights Campaign urged Musk to apologize after he shared a series of tweets that the organization described as “insensitive” for insulting gender identity and using pronouns.
—Elon Musk (@elonmusk) 14 December 2020
“I absolutely support trans, but all these pronouns are an aesthetic nightmare,” Musk wrote at the time.
Musk’s trans daughter filed to legally change her name in June 2022, stating that she no longer wants “to be related to my biological father in any way, shape or form.”
