Sorry, Not Sorry: Elon Musk Repeats Tasteless Kamala Harris Assassination Joke to Tucker Carlson After Shooting at Vice President’s Campaign Office
Tesla founder and X owner Elon Musk raised a bit of ruckus Tuesday after repeating a joke he first made on his social media channel.
“Nobody has even bothered to kill Kamala because it’s pointless,” Musk told far-right provocateur Tucker Carlson in an interview posted on X. “Ha, ha, ha. What do you achieve? Nothing, you just bought another puppet. Nobody is trying to kill Biden, it would be pointless.”
Musk made similar remarks in September after a second attempted assassination of Donald Trump was thwarted, tweeting, with accompanying raised eyebrow emoji, “No one is even trying” to assassinate President Joe Biden or Vice-President Kamala Harris.”
However, Kamala Harris‘ campaign office in Tempe, Arizona, was shot at that same week and just days before Harris was set to visit the state as part of her presidential campaign.
Tempe police confirmed this was the second attack on the office in recent weeks. No one was inside at the time, and there were no injuries, but the gunfire damage has raised concerns about the safety of campaign workers. Some critics blame Musk for inciting the violence.
He deleted the post soon after hitting send, then tweeted, “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.”
Or in an interview with Carlson, although the former Fox News host was quite amused by Elon’s recycled joke.
The laughs weren’t shared on X.
“I’m a government contractor. I’m pretty sure if I joked online about killing the POTUS or vice POTUS, I’d lose my contracts,” said one commenter.
Another commenter referenced recent remarks from vice presidential candidate JD Vance suggesting “inflammatory rhetoric” from “undemocratically installed” Democrat nominee Kamala Harris “along with the purveyors of hate” in the media almost got Trump killed, twice.
“I thought we were so supposed to be mindful about violent rhetoric? Or does that only apply to one side?”
Musk, for one, has made no effort to dial down the discourse. Besides the recycled “joke” about assassinations, the tech magnate has repeatedly warned that if Trump loses, this election will be the last. The former president, he says, is the only candidate who can preserve democracy.
Musk has also used X to spread false rumors that North Carolina authorities had “taken control to stop people helping” stricken residents and that sheriffs were prepared to arrest FEMA staff “if they hinder rescue and aid work” in the wake of Hurricane Helene.
His claims that federal disaster funds had been diverted to immigrants are also demonstrably false.
“FEMA used up its budget ferrying illegals into the country instead of saving American lives. Treason,” Musk tweeted.
That’s in line with Trump’s accusation that the Biden administration has slow-walked relief efforts in the South because most of the citizens impacted support the Republican nominee.
However, some former staffers from the Trump administration say it was the ex-president who politicized disaster relief.
Mark Harvey, resiliency policy director under Trump, said his former boss didn’t want to send aid to California, a Democratic stronghold, after the 2018 wildfires that killed more than 100 citizens. He was convinced to change course after aides shared data showing the ex-president got more votes in Orange County, California, than in Iowa.
“Turns out that jokes are way less funny if people don’t know the context and the delivery is in plain text,” Musk tweeted in September.
The U.S. Secret Service said it was aware of Musk’s assassination tweet.
“As a matter of practice we do not comment on matters involving protective intelligence,” the agency said in a statement sent to the BBC. “We can say, however, that the Secret Service investigates all threats related to our protectees.”
The White House called the tweet “irresponsible.”
“Violence should only be condemned, never encouraged or joked about,” the White House statement said.