Elon Musk targets Dr. Anthony Fauci in viral tweet, sparking backlash
As Dr. Anthony Fauci prepare get off The leading immunologist, who was director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases at the end of the year, faced ridicule on social media over the weekend from the tech billionaire and Twitter CEO. Elon Musk.
“My pronoun is Prosecute/Fauci,” says Musk murmured on sunday. Shared largely without context, the jibe garnered support from prominent conservatives like right-wing lawmakers. marjorie taylor green β the account is Revived Due to Musk’s decision to exit the platform, COVID-19 (new coronavirus infectious disease) Last month, she formulated a misinformation policy and has been criticized for mocking and backlashing her use of gender pronouns in her own remarks in the past.
Musk’s tweet garnered nearly half a million likes in its first few hours online, but health experts such as vaccine scientist and virology professor Peter Hotes said the U.S. defended Fauci’s research at the forefront of pandemic mitigation efforts and urged Musk to remove the post.
βFor the record: Dr. Fauci has done nothing wrong except to serve our country. 200,000 Americans needlessly lost their lives to Covid, Elon, I’d like to “delete this tweet,” Hotez wrote. Musk has not publicly responded.
Democratic Rep. Dean Phillips of Minnesota called out Musk to target Fauci.
“It’s America. Go ahead, pick any pronoun,” the lawmaker tweeted. “But Anthony Fauci probably saved more lives than any human being alive in the world. Shame on you.”
About an hour before posting his tweet about Fauci, Musk shared the following message: meme Part of the caption reads, “One more lockdown.” This can be interpreted as an allusion to Fauci’s defense of safety mandates, which public health experts, including experts from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, have agreed. The spread of COVID-19 before a vaccine was widely available.
Fauci, who became one of the leading figures in the fight against the pandemic in early 2020, was hailed as a hero by some, but advocated for social distancing and for using face masks by others. , has been criticized for recommending vaccinations to protect against COVID-19. He particularly clashed with former President Donald Trump, with Fauci opposing mitigation policies and increasing misinformation and disinformation about the virus itself. Fauci said in a new interview CNN He said he felt “needed” to publicly oppose, despite the then-president’s displeasure.
“I have a lot of respect for the presidency, so I felt very uncomfortable, but I had to.. t, you know. Bleach works.” It will magically disappear.” No,” he said.
Twitter has changed a lot since Musk bought the company this fall and promised to restore “free speech” on the platform. His changes include mass layoffs of his Twitter staff who were previously responsible for moderating his content, the reinstatement of accounts previously banned for violating Twitter’s rules of conduct, and the site’s “blacklist.” It included the disclosure of data it claimed to reveal. , and the removal of his COVID misinformation policy.
Musk’s takeover has prompted the departure of some celebrities and other large accounts from Twitter amid accusations that he is empowering far-right actors. new york times.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/elon-musk-anthony-fauci-viral-tweet-backlash-health-experts/ Elon Musk targets Dr. Anthony Fauci in viral tweet, sparking backlash