In an interview with CNBC on Tuesday night, Elon Musk defended the spread of conspiracy theories surrounding a deadly mass shooting in Texas earlier this month.
On May 9, Bellingcat, an open source intelligence research group, published a story detailing the shooter’s white supremacist and neo-Nazi views. The Bellingcat story included social media posts from the Russian social network Odnoklassniki dating back to the shooter, including photos of body armor with large swastika tattoos and RWDS (Right Wing Death Squad, far-right slogan) patches. The Texas Department of Public Safety also said the shooter showed signs of neo-Nazi ideology, with one official saying “he had patches. He had tattoos.”
But in the May 9 shooting On Twitter, Musk responded to a sketchy meme questioning the details of the shooter, claiming that Bellingcat is “really good at psych operations,” and saying “it’s either the weirdest story ever or really bad psych warfare!”
CNBC’s David Faber asked him about the tweet in an interview Tuesday night. “I think this has been wrongly attributed to white supremacist actions,” Musk said. “And the evidence for this is some little-known Russian website that no one has heard of and has no followers. The company that found this is Bellingcat. Do you know what Bellingcat is? Psychologist. Bellingcat states in its story that it The material was not actually found; its existence was first reported by New York Times.
Musk added, “I mean I think attributing it to white supremacy is bullshit. And the relevant information came from an obscure Russian website and was somehow magically discovered by Bellingcat, a company that does psychological warfare. The Bellingcat report described finding the profile by matching the account with the shooter’s date of birth. The account posted photos of identification documents, including a speeding ticket and a boarding pass with the shooter’s name on it.
Starting at 2:39 in this video, you can hear Musk commenting on himself.
Musk on the shooting The comments were part of an escalating series of messages that echoed right-wing talking points.In the interview, he similarly defended comments claiming that billionaire philanthropist George Soros, who has often been the subject of an anti-Semitic conspiracy, “hates humanity.” He also shared a widely disproved conspiracy theory last year about a motive for an attack on Nancy Pelosi’s husband, Paul Pelosi. In an interview with CNBC, he reiterated his denial that the gunman held white supremacist views:
Faber: By the way, there is no evidence that he is not a [white supremacist ]
Musk: I would say there is no evidence he is.
Faber; Is this a debate you want to engage in on Twitter?
Musk: Yes. Because if white supremacy is wrong, we shouldn’t blame it on white supremacy.
This conversation happened when Musk told Faber that he would say what he wanted, even if it cost him money. I have to imagine these comments cost him some money.
