The Secret Service is probing Elon Musk’s post about threats to President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris, Bloomberg reports.
“The Secret Service is looking into Elon Musk’s post on X that suggested it was strange no one attempted to assassinate President Joe Biden or Vice President Kamala Harris. In response to a FOIA request, the agency said it is withholding records due to ‘enforcement proceedings,'” Jason Leopold and Dana Hull reported in their Bloomberg newsletter.
Bloomberg notes that threatening the president or vice president is “a felony that can carry a hefty fine or up to five years in prison.”
As the richest man on the planet, Elon Musk is highly unlikely to face any real consequences for his actions, even if they determine he violated the law.
Hours after a gunman was apprehended for a suspected assassination plot against ex-president Donald Trump on his golf course in Florida, Musk sent a tweet to his 198 million followers saying, “And no one is even trying to assassinate Biden/Kamala?”
Elon Musk tweet asking why no one is trying to assassinate Biden or Harris
Two days ago, the US Secret Service said it was “aware” of Musk’s social media post. Musk deleted the post and claimed it was a “joke.” The BBC reported the Secret Service’s refusal to comment further, “As a matter of practice we do not comment on matters involving protective intelligence. We can say, however, that the Secret Service investigates all threats related to our protectees.”
Ryan Wesley Routh, the suspect in the Florida golf course incident, was charged with gun crimes. He did not fire at the ex-president; the only gunfire at the scene was from the Secret Service toward the suspect after spotting his weapon.
Musk has endorsed Donald Trump and Trump in return has promised Musk a job in his potential administration. The Wall Street Journal reported that Musk planned to donate $45 million per month to the pro-Trump America PAC. Musk has since denied that reporting.
Musk’s PAC got into trouble for collecting voter information in battleground states in a potentially misleading way that suggests they are registering to vote, according to a CNBC report.
“But for users who enter a ZIP code that indicates they live in a battleground state, like Pennsylvania or Georgia, the process is very different.”
CNBC reported that for those users, “they instead are directed to a highly detailed personal information form, prompted to enter their address, cellphone number and age,” and in the end they never got registered to vote, “But they did hand over priceless personal data to a political operation.”
Musk has reportedly amplified content from an alleged Russian election interference plot unmasked weeks ago. “Musk, apparently unaware of the company’s Russia funding source, engaged with content from Tenet Media and its creators at least 60 times,” NBC News reported.
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