Republican presidential candidate Ron DeSantis is refusing to condemn Elon Musk ‘s post endorsing an antisemitic conspiracy theory, maintaining Sunday that he wasn’t familiar with the post despite it prompting major companies to pull advertising from the billionaire’s X social media platform.
“I did not see the comment,” DeSantis, the governor of Florida, said on CNN’s “State of the Union.” “And so, I know that Elon has had a target on his back ever since he purchased Twitter because I think he’s taking it in a direction that a lot of people who are used to controlling the narrative don’t like.”
Musk has sparked outcry with a recent tweet responding to a user who accused Jews of hating white people and for professing a general indifference to antisemitism. “You have said the actual truth,” Musk tweeted in a reply Wednesday.
Something that someone pointed out to me several years ago, when there was some scandal in the US Congress and everyone the press contacted was like “I haven’t read it so I don’t know anything about it”: it may or may not be true that he hasn’t read it. But he certainly has a staff member who has read it and informed him about it.
“I haven’t seen it” is the equivalent of Yes, I know about it, but it would create difficulties for me if I condemn it, so I’m just very conveniently going to avoid ‘seeing’ it until this blows over. Also, if you continue to press me about the matter, I’m just going to respond that I haven’t seen it because I’ve been focusing on <random other issue that I really do want to talk about>, so there.