What did Elon Musk say about Bronny James’ cardiac arrest and why is it dangerous?
If there’s one thing about Elon Musk, it’s that he’s as divisive as he is rich, which is to say his words and actions often lead to mass conflict and even litigation.
With his recent comments about the frightening ordeal suffered by LeBron James’ son, Bronny James, it’s clearer than ever that the Tesla founder has crossed a line. The question that remains is, at what point should the world’s wealthiest person be held accountable for what he says and does?
So, what did Elon Musk say about Bronny James?
Now, you’re probably wondering what could the tech mogul have to say about USC’s famous freshman, in that the two couldn’t be further removed from each other. Yet, it wasn’t Bronny James’ budding career in basketball which would have been understandable, or the terrible ordeal that the 18-year-old recently - If you missed our report on it, Bronny James suffered a cardiac arrest on Monday during a training session with his new team. No, instead Musk chose to give his opinion on why James may have suffered a cardiac arrest, and it was both void of empathy and conspiratorial at the same time.
Taking to X - formerly Twitter until he recently rebranded it - Musk posted the following statement about James who is now recovering at home with his family: “We cannot ascribe everything to the vaccine, but, by the same token, we cannot ascribe nothing.” He also added that “Myocarditis is a known side-effect” of the covid-19 vaccine. To make matters worse, when Musk’s tweet was fact-checked, the post doing so was deleted. In case you’re wondering, the Yale School of Medicine says the chance of developing myocarditis following a vaccine is rare.
Now to be clear, Musk was not the only person with a platform who espoused such ideas, with Fox News host Martha MacCallum stating that James suffered “myocarditis” and that it was “a side effect of the vaccine.” There was also fellow Fox host Laura Ingraham who had her say as well. “Well, today, Elon Musk was pilloried for suggesting that the COVID shot might have had something to do with what happened to Bronny,” she said. “Now, he may be completely wrong. It’s speculation. But we do know that myocarditis is a side-effect of the vaccine and given everything the so-called experts got wrong during COVID, we shouldn’t condemn anyone who is asking questions as these cases seem to be accelerating.” Yet, it would be safe to say that neither of them carries the kind of weight that Musk does and that’s a problem. On the other hand, if we take a look at the 52-year-old’s past transgressions, it’s just par for the course, which isn’t just a problem, it’s a threat when considering how great his influence in the world is.
How has Elon Musk been offensive in the past?
Though we will go further back, we can start with as recent as May when the Space X founder posted a conspiracy theory about a mass shooter in Allen, Texas. Then, we’ve got his take on George Soros who he claims wants to “erode the very fabric of civilization.” Also, there were his anti-LBGTQ conspiracies about why Paul Pelosi was attacked and lest we forget, there was his endorsement of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. who once promoted the idea of covid-19 spared Ashkenazi Jews and people of Chinese descent. We’ll let you process that last one. To this end, it’s no surprise that just hours after he purchased Twitter last year, the Anti-Defamation League reported that more than 1,200 tweets and retweets were antisemitic in nature. The Washington Post also echoed a similar sentiment, by stating that the use of the N-word increased by 500% on Twitter after he took over the site. Of course, none of this is to say that Elon Musk is antisemitic or racist, but those who promote those kinds of ideas certainly seem to like him.
Ultimately, this latest scenario will likely spend a few days as a talking point in various corners and will eventually be forgotten. On the other hand, it might be pertinent to think for a moment about what’s really happening in front of us. We’ve got the richest person on the planet who understandably commands a massive platform and apparently seems to either be ignorant in his use of it or genuinely doesn’t care. Either way, the end result is the same i.e., the spreading of dangerous misinformation which in turn only fuels the fires of ignorance and aggression among his millions of followers.