Musk makes insensitive comments after Trump attack – India TV

Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla and likely a good friend of former US President Donald Trump, left an insensitive comment on the social media platform after the Republican candidate faced a second assassination attempt on Sunday. Trump was the target of what the FBI called “an apparent assassination attempt” at his golf club in West Palm Beach, Florida, on September 15, just nine weeks after the Republican presidential candidate survived another attempt on his life. The former president said he was safe and sound, and authorities were holding a man in custody.

However, business magnate Musk wondered on X: “And no one is even trying to assassinate Biden/Kamala.” The insensitive post came in response to a query from an X user with the handle @cb_doge, who wanted to know why the former president was targeted.

CNN, Fox News and the New York Times, citing unidentified law enforcement officials, identified the suspect as Ryan Wesley Routh, 58, of Hawaii. The FBI declined to comment and Reuters could not independently verify his identity. Reuters found profiles on X, Facebook and LinkedIn for a certain Ryan Routh, and public access to the Facebook and X profiles was blocked hours after the shooting. The three accounts bearing Routh's name suggest he was an avid supporter of Ukraine in its war against Russia.

On April 21, Routh sent an X-message to Elon Musk, writing, “I want to buy a missile from you. I want to load it with a warhead for Putin's bunker in the Black Sea villa to destroy him. Can you please give me a price?” The New York Times reported that it interviewed Routh in 2023 for an article about Americans volunteering to support Ukraine's war effort. Routh told the Times that he traveled to Ukraine and spent several months there in 2022 and is trying to recruit Afghan soldiers who fled the Taliban to fight in Ukraine.

On Show X in 2020, Routh expressed his support for Democratic U.S. presidential candidate Bernie Sanders and derided Biden as “Sleepy Joe.”

Earlier this year, Routh tagged Biden in a post on X: “@POTUS your campaign should be called something like KADAF. Keep America democratic and free. Trump's should be called MASA… make Americans slaves again. DEMOCRACY is on the ballot and we can't lose.” The suspected shooter's son, Adam, reached by Reuters at the hardware store where he works in Hawaii, said he had not heard of the latest assassination attempt on Trump and had “no information,” adding that he did not believe his father would do such a thing.

The reporter later called back at the store and a colleague said Adam had gone home because of an emergency. Another of Routh's sons, Oran, told CNN in a statement: “I have no comment other than a character profile of him as a loving and caring father… I don't know what happened in Florida and I hope things were simply blown out of proportion.”

(With contributions from agencies)

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