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Elon Musk targeted America’s outgoing top infectious disease official and key advisor to the US response to the Covid-19 pandemic, Anthony Fauci, in a viral tweet on Sunday that sparked backlash.
“My pronouns are Prosecute/Fauci,” the billionaire Twitter CEO said, referring to the practise of indicating gender pronouns after one’s name as well as the right-wing campaign to charge Fauci with crimes related to his involvement in US Covid policies.
Musk also shared a meme of Fauci telling US President Joe Biden, “Just one more lockdown, my king…” in apparent criticism of the Covid mitigation measure Musk has repeatedly criticised but has not been deployed in the country for over a year.
Early in the pandemic, Musk tweeted that concern about the virus was “dumb,” and since taking over Twitter, it has removed its policy targeting Covid misinformation.
Musk’s tweet quickly went viral, receiving over 800,000 likes in 11 hours but also drawing harsh criticism.
Vaccine scientist and author Peter Hotez urged Musk to delete the tweet, claiming that “200,000 Americans needlessly lost their lives from Covid due to this kind of antiscience rhetoric and disinformation.”
Democratic Senator Amy Klobuchar praised Fauci for “calmly guiding our country through crisis” and addressed Musk, saying, “Could you just leave a good man alone in your seemingly endless quest for attention?”
Musk, on the other hand, received praise from conservatives.
After repeatedly clashing with the top immunologist over Covid vaccines, mask mandates, and other pandemic-related issues, Republican lawmakers have promised to grill Fauci when they take control of the House in January.
Fauci, 81, is set to leave his positions as Biden’s chief medical advisor and director of the National Institute of Allergies and Infectious Diseases, which he has led since 1984, this month.
In what was likely his final White House appearance in November, Fauci slammed the spread of bad health advice on the internet and said the most difficult thing he had to deal with while leading America’s fight against Covid was the country’s polarisation along political lines.
