Musk brushes off criticism of his tweets: ‘I don’t care’

Elon Musk’s public comments have alienated many Twitter users and advertisers since he took over the company last year, but he says it doesn’t bother him.

“I’ll say what I want and if the consequence of that is losing money, so be it,” the billionaire said during a CNBC interview. 

CNBC’s David Faber began the discussion by asking Mr. Musk about his most recent controversy concerning the ideology of the May 6 Texas shooter. In the aftermath of the shooting, Mr. Musk tweeted his suspicion with the mainstream narrative that the shooter was a neo-Nazi.

“I’m saying I thought that ascribing it to white supremacy was bullshit. And that the information for that came from an obscure Russian website and was somehow magically found by Bellingcat, which is a company that does psyops,” he said in the Tuesday interview.

Psyops or psychological operations are intended to influence the minds and actions of individuals, groups or governments. Bellingcat is an open-source intelligence organization most famous for its investigation into the poisoning of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny. There is no evidence that it participates in psychological operations. 

Mr. Musk asserted in the interview that there is no proof that the shooter was a White supremacist, contradicting the media outlets and Texas authorities that reported on the neo-Nazi posts found on the alleged shooter’s social media account. 

“We do know that he had neo-Nazi ideation. He had patches. He had tattoos. Even his signature verified that,” North Texas regional director for the Texas Department of Public Safety Hank Sibley said. 

Mr. Musk’s resistance to self-censorship has been a significant reason why advertisers have left the site in droves. The public backlash to his tweets may be a reason he has named a new CEO. Linda Yaccarino, a former NBCUniversal advertising chief, is set to take the reigns sometime in the near future and may provide a more acceptable face for advertisers.