Elon Musk Tweets ‘My Pronouns Are Prosecute/Fauci,’ Here’s The Response

The phrases “prosecute” and “Fauci” technically aren’t pronouns. However that didn’t cease billionaire Elon Musk from tweeting “My pronouns are Prosecute/Fauci” early on Sunday morning:

On this tweet, Musk was presumably referring to Anthony Fauci, MD, who’s been Director of the Nationwide Institute of Allergy and Infectious Ailments (NIAID) since 1984. And never Joe Fauci, Emma Fauci, Tucker Fauci, Fauci Taylor Greene, X Æ A-12 Fauci, or another Fauci. Additionally, presumably the billionaire’s tweet wasn’t suggesting that folks ought to begin associating the phrase “prosecute” with Musk or calling Musk “prosecute” or “Fauci.” As a substitute, it appeared like Musk was making an attempt to in some way affiliate the phrase “prosecute” with the title “Fauci.” Hmm, that’s fairly a Fauci ouchie however not in a Covid-19 vaccine kind of method.

Yep, that’s what the richest man on the earth simply used his platform to inform his over 120.9 million followers. Granted this follower listing could also be some mixture of people, bots, folks employed by Musk, and even perhaps Musk himself. Today you possibly can’t actually inform who’s actual and who’s not on Twitter. Or who is definitely a what. However, Musk’s tweet in all probability landed straight in lots of people’s feeds, even those that don’t comply with the proprietor of Tesla and SpaceX. In any case, Twitter is actually Musk’s platform, since he lately acquired the entire “Twit and caboodle” in a $44 billion deal. You may as effectively name it Musker, given the variety of occasions you see what he’s saying if you end up on the platform. No matter algorithms at the moment are put in into the Twitter might be doing issues like “oh, I see you want cat movies, how about we present you these tweets from Elon Musk? Hmm, you appear to be tweeting loads about knitting One Route sweater. What about some tweets from Elon Musk?” Plus, if you personal a social media platform, you possibly can type of arrange as many nameless “burner” accounts as you’d like.

Numerous actual scientists and public well being specialists shortly pushed again in opposition to Musk’s tweet. For instance, Peter Hotez, MD, PhD, Dean of the Nationwide College of Tropical Medication, tweeted, “For the record: Dr. Fauci has done nothing wrong, except serve our nation,” as you possibly can see right here:

Hotez’s tweet went on to state, “Within the meantime, Mr. Musk ought to know that 200,000 People needlessly misplaced their lives from Covid resulting from this type of antiscience rhetoric and disinformation. Elon, I’m asking you to take down this Tweet.”

In the meantime, Gregg Gonsalves, PhD, an Affiliate Professor of Epidemiology at Yale College, tweeted, “Elon Musk is a monster. Full stop”:

Gonsalves added, “He’s tweeted out “prosecute/Fauci,” with “he” referring to Musk since that presumably is Musk’s actual precise pronoun. Gonsalves used one other pronoun “this” when he wrote, “It is a billionaire amping up hundreds of thousands to go after an federal official.”

Gonsalves’s tweet thread continued with Gonsalves emphasizing that he had “protested Fauci early within the AIDS epidemic, however we NEVER made threats like this.” The thread additionally referred to as Musk a “proper wing oligarch” and “a thug,” which, by the way, aren’t formally pronouns both:

Gonsalves indicated that Twitter has “devolved right into a cesspool,” which by the way in which isn’t a optimistic assertion. For instance, should you had been to inform your buddy, “Your own home is sort of a cesspool” and your date, “Your face is a bit like a cesspool,” you could not have that buddy for for much longer or a second date.

Gonsalves’s tweet thread declared that “Musk LIKES stirring hate up. All of what he’s finished is to fire up antisemitism, racist and homophobic assaults on this website and now he’s unleashed his hate on a particular person. ” Moreover, Gonsalves labeled this stirring up as “Throwing crimson meat to his minions,” which was just like what Gavin Yamey MD, MPH, MA, the Hymowitz Professor of the Apply of World Well being at Duke College, posted:

Actual scientists and public well being specialists weren’t the one ones successfully saying “what/what/what” to Musk’s pronouns tweet about Fauci. For instance, Rep. Ritchie Torres (D-New York) wrote that “Elon Musk desires to criminalize Anthony Fauci as a result of he disagrees with him,” within the following tweet response:

Not surprisingly, not everybody pushed again in opposition to Musk’s tweet. For instance, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Georgia) responded to Musk’s tweet with an affirmative tweet of hers/herself:

So, hey, no less than Musk can say, “Marjorie Taylor Greene agrees with me.”

If you happen to’ve been residing in a bathroom paper tent for the previous few years and are nonetheless questioning what an “Anthony Fauci” is, you would all the time lookup it within the City Dictionary. As a result of that’s the place you must go everytime you don’t perceive one thing, proper? Effectively, one of many definitions within the City Dictionary reads, “A doctor who focuses on infectious ailments. Whereas he was identified for contributing loads of HIV/AIDS analysis through the 80s, however he’s particularly identified now as a hero through the COVID-19 pandemic. Sadly, he will get unfairly maligned by Trumplicans & covidiots as a result of he is trustworthy and doesn’t say what the American folks need to hear.” The City Dictionary has the next definition of “Fauci” as effectively: “to confound others with erudite information.”

These definitely aren’t the one definitions of “Anthony Fauci” and “Fauci” within the City Dictionary. There are certainly much less flattering ones. And nobody ought to deal with the City Dictionary like a extra formal dictionary such because the Merriam-Webster Dictionary.

Regardless, the 2 City Dictionary definitions listed above do type of seize what’s been taking place with Fauci and politics over the previous two-and-half-plus years. In 2020, when then U.S. President and present Mar-A-Lago resident Donald Trump was claiming that the Covid-19 pandemic was rounding the nook, calling the extreme acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 the “kung-flu”, asking whether or not disinfectant will be injected into the physique, and amplifying theories not backed by scientific proof, Fauci was seemingly the one individual on the 2020 White Home Covid-19 briefings keen to publicly say issues that weren’t utterly in keeping with Trump. In doing so, Fauci turned primarily the lone voice of science with entry to the White Home megaphone in that first pandemic 12 months when so many deaths and a lot struggling may have been averted. All of the whereas, Fauci by no means actually used belligerent or incendiary language. It didn’t seem as if he was actively making an attempt to attract consideration to himself. In any case, Fauci didn’t say issues like “I’ve one of the best science”, “that is your favourite scientist”, or “I’m a steady genius,” did he?

Certain, Fauci definitely hasn’t been excellent since early 2020. Whereas he’s a really completed and award-winning scientist, significantly within the AIDS and immunology arenas, public well being specialists have complained that Fauci may have been extra vocal concerning the Covid-19 coronavirus’s potential to go airborne, the usage of facemasks, and the necessity to layer and higher coordinate totally different Covid-19 interventions. There have been complaints that he may have been much more vocal in opposition to what Trump was saying. Plus, he’s removed from the one Covid-19 knowledgeable on the market. No single scientist is aware of all the pieces there’s to learn about Covid-19. Each the Trump and Biden Administrations may have finished extra to extra broadly leverage the big selection of scientific experience that exists within the U.S.

However, the following hostile and threatening assaults on Fauci have set a nasty, unhealthy precedent. Free speech implies that you must permit different folks to voice opinions even when such opinions don’t agree with you/your/youz personal. However it shouldn’t imply that folks can voice such disagreements in methods that may clearly be dangerous, incite violence, or find yourself suppressing free speech.