Elon Musk slammed after using 'homophobic slur' at US politician Sean Duffy
Elon Musk has never been one to hold his tongue, but once again, the world's richest man is in the firing line for running his mouth online. Just when you thought the tech billionaire had bowed out of sticking his oar into politics following his explosive falling out with President Donald Trump, he's now opening up old wounds.
There's more controversy surrounding Elon Musk, continuing a bubbling feud between him and Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy. Donald Trump twisted the knife on Musk when he promoted Duffy to interim head of NASA and nixed the latter's lobbying for Jared Isaacman to be given the role.
This comes after there were reports of an 'explosive' meeting between Musk and Duffy, with the Secretary of Transportation apparently taking issue with the Department of Government Efficiency slashing federal employees, and Duffy saying: "What am I supposed to do? I have multiple plane crashes to deal with now, and your people want me to fire air traffic controllers?”
Now, Musk has accused Duffy of 'trying to kill NASA' and exchanged a series of barbs online.
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As the Acting Administrator for NASA, Duffy called out Musk's SpaceX in terms of the progress of getting us back to the Moon. Duffy maintains that SpaceX is 'behind' schedule and hinted that NASA could look to Jeff Bezos' rival Blue Origin when he said: "We’re not going to wait for one company."
The fracas was exasperated by a report from The Wall Street Journal, claiming that Duffy plans on folding NASA into the Department of Transportation. Musk didn't hold back when he said that Duffy's plans would end the USA's dominance in space, later adding: “The person responsible for America’s space program can’t have a 2 digit IQ."
At the time of writing, Musk's pinned post on X is a poll that's titled: "Should someone whose biggest claim to fame is climbing trees be running America’s space program? 🤔"
As well as referring to Duffy as 'Sean Dummy', Musk took things even further when he shared a GIF from the "Why are you gay?” Ugandan TV clip. Despite Duffy being married to Rachel Campos-Duffy, Musk captioned the GIF with, "Also, one question."
Slamming Musk and his attacks on Duffy instead of clarifying what's going on with SpaceX, someone responded: "Yet instead of providing an update the CEO is throwing a fit and calling the acting director gay. That ain’t what you do if you have something to show."
Another chimed in saying: "Are you a child? Duffy can streamline a national regulatory framework for robotaxi and you’re calling him gay on X? What was the $300M you spent on Trump for? Are you out of your mind?"
A third said: "Elon Musk is doing exactly 0 to elevate the rapidly deteriorating level of discourse in the US and on social media. Calling someone gay for doing something you don't like is homophobia wrapped in juvenile humor. There's literally nothing good about it.
At a time when Musk is accused of turning X into a 'toxic' wasteland where LGBTQ+ rights have been stripped away, joking about sexuality probably isn't the best look.