During a post-midterm election press conference, President Joe Biden was asked by Jenny Leonard from Bloomberg News if he thinks Elon Musk is a threat to U.S. national security and if he would direct the government to investigate his acquisition of Twitter.
Leonard asked, “Do you think Elon Musk is a threat to US national security? And should the US — and with the tools you have — investigate his joint acquisition of Twitter with foreign governments, which include the Saudis?” .
“I think that Elon Musk’s cooperation and/or technical relationships with other countries is worthy of being looked at. Whether or not he is doing anything inappropriate I’m not suggesting that. I’m suggesting its worth being looked at. And that’s all I’ll say.”
“How?” Another reporter asked.
“There’s a lot of ways.” Biden answered before quickly moving on to another question.
Naturally, within minutes of the exchange, #ElonGate was coined by Newsmax’s Benny Johnson on the very social media platform that generated the controversy.
Joe Biden just said @elonmusk “is worth being looked at” as a national security threat
A reporter calls him out by asking “HOW?!”
A clueless Joe Biden panics, mumbles, and says, “there’s a lot of ways”
ELONGATE?! pic.twitter.com/7a0mxPtHz0
— Benny Johnson (@bennyjohnson) November 9, 2022
According to Reuters, in October the Biden administration answered rumors that Biden was launching a national security review into some of Musk’s businesses including Twitter were “not true.”
Biden had previously called out Musk during a Chicago fundraiser on Friday, Nov. 4,
“Elon Musk goes out and buys an outfit that spews lies all across the world,” the president said at a Democratic fundraiser in Rosemont, Illinois, according to CNN citing the press pool.
“There’s no editors anymore in America,” he added.
White House Press Secretary Karine Jean Pierre told the network earlier that day Biden has been “outspoken about the importance of social media platforms continuing to take steps to reduce hate speech and misinformation.”
“That belief extends to Twitter, it extends to Facebook and any other social media platforms where users can spread misinformation,” she claimed.
Biden memorably snubbed Musk by not inviting the Tesla CEO to an electric vehicle expo at the White House despite Tesla’s remarkably high sales, citing a lack of a Union workforce according to The New York Post.