Twitter owner Elon Musk on Tuesday doubled down on his assertion there is “no proof” the swastika-tattooed man suspected of killing eight people at an Allen, Texas, mall earlier this month was a white supremacist.
“I think it was incorrectly ascribed to be a white supremacist action,” Musk told CNBC’s David Faber. “I’m saying that I thought ascribing it to white supremacy was bullshit.”
The suspect, Mauricio Garcia, was shot dead by police during the attack in which he reportedly wore a patch with the text “RWDS” ― short for “Right Wing Death Squad.”
“We do know that he had neo-Nazi ideation. He had patches. He had tattoos. Even his signature verified that,” said Hank Sibley, North Texas regional director for the Texas Department of Public Safety.
Garcia also allegedly posed neo-Nazi content online.
Musk, who welcomed back to Twitter many previously banned far-right users after buying the platform last year, also addressed his attacks on Democratic donor George Soros, the billionaire investor and Jewish Holocaust survivor who is the target of right-wing anti-semitic conspiracy theories.
On Monday, Musk tweeted Soros “wants to erode the very fabric of civilization” and “hates humanity.”
“I’m a pro-Semite, if anything,” defended Musk, who in the past has tweeted memes about Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler.
Faber asked Musk if his controversial and sometimes false comments could put off potential advertisers for Twitter. He sat for 12 seconds before saying: “You know, I’m reminded of. There’s a scene in ‘The Princess Bride’ — great movie — where he confronts the person who killed his father and he says, ‘Offer me money, offer me power, I don’t care.’”
“So you just don’t care?” asked Faber.
“I’ll say what I want to say and if the consequence of that is losing money, so be it,” Musk responded.