Elon Musk insists Texas shooter with swastika tattoo isn’t white supremacist

In an interview with CNBC on Tuesday evening, Elon Musk defended the spread of conspiracy theories about the deadly mass shooting in Texas earlier this month.

On May 9, the open-source intelligence research group Bellingcat posted a story Description about shooter This indicated that he held white supremacist and neo-Nazi views. Bellingcat’s story includes social media posts from the Russian social network Odnoklassniki that describe the shooter, including a large swastika tattoo and the RWDS (right-wing death squad, a far cry) patch. Texas Department of Public Safety also said The shooter showed signs of having a neo-Nazi ideology, with one officer saying that “he had patches. He had tattoos.

But on Twitter on May 9, Musk responded to a crude meme inquiring about the shooter, to claim Bellingcat “literally specializes in psychological operations” and saying that “this is either the weirdest story ever or a very bad cype!”

CNBC’s David Faber asked him about that tweet in an interview Tuesday evening. “I think it was wrongly described as a white supremacist action,” Musk said. “And the proof was some obscure Russian website that no one had ever heard of that had no followers. And the company that discovered it was Bellingcat. And do you know what a Bellingcat is? Sipes.” In his story, Bellingcat notes that he didn’t actually discover the profile; it existed before. reported by the new York Times,

Musk said, “I’m saying that I thought attributing this to white supremacy was bullshit. And that the information for him came from an obscure Russian website and was somehow magically found by Bellingcat, which that a company that does psyops. Bellingcat’s report describes finding the profile by matching the accounts against the shooter’s date of birth. The account posted pictures of identification documents, including a speeding ticket and a boarding pass that The name of the shooter was included.

Musk’s comments about the shooting were part of a growing series of messages echoing right-wing talking points. This is how he defended himself in the interview claim comments Billionaire philanthropist George Soros, a frequent target of anti-Semitic conspiracy theories, “hates humanity.” Last year he also shared a widely debunked conspiracy theories About the motives for the attack on Nancy Pelosi’s husband Paul Pelosi. In a later interview with CNBC, he reiterated his denial that the shooter held white supremacist views:

Faber: There is no evidence that he was not (a white supremacist)

Musk: I would say there’s no evidence that he is.

Faber; And that’s a debate you want to join on Twitter?

Kasturi: Yes. Because if it’s false then we shouldn’t attribute things to white supremacy.