Elon Musk offered an explanation for his controversial post on X last month about how “no one is even trying to assassinate” Joe Biden or Kamala Harris.
In a lengthy sit-down with fellow Trump supporter Tucker Carlson, Musk told the former Fox News host that his intention was to say that doing so would be “pointless” because “nobody tries to assassinate a puppet.”
“I made a joke that no one’s even trying to kill Kamala because it’s pointless. What do you achieve? Nothing. They’ll just put in another puppet,” he told Carlson, who agreed.
“It’s deeply true,” the conspiracy-prone commentator said.
Musk ultimately deleted the post after the Secret Service launched a probe. After doing so, Musk said it was intended as a joke.
“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 wrote in a follow-up post. “Turns out that jokes are way less funny if people don’t know the context and the delivery is in plain text.”
Musk provided more detail to Carlson.
“Some people interpreted it as I was calling for people to assassinate her, but I was like…doesn’t it seem strange that no one has even bothered to try,” he said, laughing. “No one tries to assassinate a puppet.”
A longtime financier of Republican causes, Musk joined Trump last Saturday for his rally in Butler, Pennsylvania—the site of July’s assassination attempt. After jumping around on stage—a move that he was widely mocked for on his own site—the X CEO dished out some fear-mongering about how, if Trump doesn’t win, “this will be the last election.”
On Monday, Musk told Carlson—perhaps jokingly—that if Trump loses, “I’m f—ed.”
“It does seem that way,” Carlson replied, in hysterics.
“I’m like, ‘How long do you think my prison sentence is going to be? Will I see my children?’ I don’t know,” Musk said.