Elon Musk has presented a half hearted apology for sharing a baseless conspiracy theory about the attack on former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s husband, Paul.
Musk tweeted a link to a story in the Santa Monica Observer which claimed Paul Pelosi was drunk and arguing with a male escort at the time of the attack in October. Musk said in his tweet, which was deleted shortly after it was posted, “There is a tiny possibility there might be more to this story than meets the eye.”
On Saturday, after receiving a question on Twitter about whether or not he should apologize to the Pelosis, Musk said: “I apologize.”
In the early hours of October 28, Pelosi was brutally attacked with a hammer in his San Francisco home. The attacker, identified by police as David DePape, was charged with attempted murder.
The bodycam footage recorded police arriving at Pelosi’s home and Pelosi and his attacker struggling over control of the hammer. The attacker is then seen getting grip of the hammer and using it to strike Pelosi over the head.
He tweeted last fall, while linking to a story in a small California-based news outlet that has been accused of spreading misinformation.“There is a tiny possibility there might be more to this story than meets the eye.”
Musk’s representatives didn’t immediately respond to Insider’s request for comment.
Musk isn’t the only eminent public figure to have chimed in on what might have happened the night of the attack. Former President Donald Trump shared conspiracy theories about the attack, which includes that the home was broken into from the inside, saying in an interview: “So it wasn’t a break in, it was a break out.”
Elon Musk has long been criticised by journalists — most prominently MSNBC’s Medhi Hasan — for his promotion of a conspiracy spread by right-wing commentators about the attack on Mr Pelosi by a man who broke into his home.
The conspiracy put forward that the attack was not caused due to Ms Pelosi’s status as one of the most well known Democrats in the country, but it was the result of an imaginary lover’s quarrel between her husband and the man who was arrested after the incident.
That theory was contradicted by the statements of the suspect himself to police shortly after the incident, but was left uncorrected by Mr Musk.
“There is a tiny possibility there might be more to this story than meets the eye,” he tweeted last fall, while linking to a story in a small California-based news outlet that has been alleged of circulating false information.