CNN
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On Sunday, Elon Musk believed a fringe conspiracy theory about the violent attack of Paul Pelosi.
The new Twitter owner tweeted a link to an unfounded statement about Pelosi. The article was posted on a website purporting to be a news outlet.
Musk, who has 112 million followers on the platform he now owns, posted unfounded stories about Pelosi in response to Hilary Clinton’s 8:15 a.m. ET tweet arts. He later deleted the tweet around 2 p.m., but only after it received more than 28,000 retweets and 100,000 likes.
Linking to the Los Angeles Times story about Pelosi’s alleged attackers, Clinton wrote, “The Republican Party and its mouthpieces now routinely spread hate and crazy conspiracy theories. The violence that turned out was shocking, but not surprising. As a citizen , we have to hold them accountable for what they say and do.”
In response, Musk linked the baseless story, writing: “There may be more to this story than it appears.”
In 2016, the same website falsely claimed that Clinton was dead and that the person in the presidential campaign was not Clinton but her stand-in.
Musk’s post comes amid concerns about how the billionaire will run Twitter and whether it will provide a larger platform for misinformation and hate on the site.
A Twitter spokesperson did not immediately respond to CNN’s request for comment.
Musk’s acquisition — which was completed Thursday night — has the potential to bring upheaval not only to Twitter’s (TWTR) workforce, but to the hundreds of millions of people around the world who use the platform every day. It could also affect the upcoming U.S. midterm elections if Musk follows through on his promise to restore the accounts of users previously banned from the platform, notably former U.S. President Donald Trump, and limit the company’s content restrictions.
In the early weeks after agreeing to buy the company in April, before he initially moved to bail the deal, Musk repeatedly stressed that his goal was to support “free speech” on the platform and work to “unlock” Twitter’s extraordinary potential”. The Tesla CEO suggested he reconsider Twitter’s approach to content moderation and permanent bans, which could have implications for civic discourse and the political landscape. He also spoke about his desire to move away from bot platforms, even if he later moved bots The number is at the heart of his argument for abandoning the deal.
CNN’s Clare Duffy contributed to this report