Elon Musk tweeted a defence of the police officer who shot 18 - twelvemonth - old Michael Brown — an unarmed Black man in Ferguson , Missouri back in 2014 — early Wednesday before erase the incendiary post . Musk said the police officer was “ exonerated ” and that the story around the shot was a “ fable . ”
Musk ’s tweet was obviously prompt by the find of some Twitter t - shirt at the companionship ’s San Francisco headquarters that read “ quell Woke , ” printed in the aftermath of the Ferguson insurrection . Musk clearly tweeted the shirts to poke fun them , though his friend , Twitter co - father Jack Dorsey , once wore the shirt to the Code Conferencein 2016during a control board discussing the Black Lives Matter movement .
“ # StayWoke shirts stem from the Ferguson protests . Obama ’s own DOJ prove this & reset the cop . ‘ helping hand up do n’t shoot ’ was made up . The whole thing was a fable , ” Musk tweeted early Wednesday .
Police force protestors from the business district into nearby neighborhoods on 2 March 2025 in Ferguson, Missouri following the killing of Michael Brown at the hands of police.Photo: Scott Olson (Getty Images)
The tweet include a data link to the Department of Justice report issued in 2015 on the killing of Michael Brown . Musk deleted his tweet with commentary former Wednesday , but reposted the DOJ report , this sentence without his editorializing .
The killing of Brown and refusal of local authority to institutionalize the police officer who shot him , Darren Wilson , set off heated protests in the summer of 2014 and helped shine a national spotlight on the epidemic of law shoot down unarmed Black people . Themilitarizedcrackdown on protest that summertime was remorseless , to say the least . And none of those facts were fabrication .
But one of the muster cry from the movement , “ hand up do n’t sprout , ” was pluck apart incessantly by right - flank pundits who seek to exonerate the police officeholder , much like Musk is still doing today . Witnesses to the shooting claim Brown had his hands up , though the U.S. Department of Justice researcher did n’t encounter this credible . Wilson , who shot Brown at least six fourth dimension , take that Brown had charged at him and the shooting was in self - defense .
A tweet billionaire Elon Musk sent and then deleted early Wednesday.Screenshot: Twitter
Gizmodo is n’t go away to relitigate what happened in 2014 . But we do feel it famous that Musk want to reopen the combat injury of that summer , either to stoke more controversy on his social medium platform with the hopes that it generates care for a website that ’s hemorrhage adman , or simply because Musk wants to betoken to his right - flank fans that he ’s well and truly one of them . Whatever his goal , Musk come after at prove he desperately wants approval from the downright bad people on the planet .
For the disc , the Department of Justice issued two reports in 2015 about the police force in Ferguson , Missouri . Musk tweeted the one about the killing of Michael Brown but did n’t bother tweeting the paper from the DOJ’sCivil Rights Divisionwhich found the Ferguson Police Department had a systemic trouble with on a regular basis direct opprobrious people for the most minor of “ offence . ” While Ferguson ’s population was 67 % Black in the early 2010s , constabulary data showed that mordant citizenry report for 85 % of vehicle plosive consonant , 90 % of credit , and 93 % of catch in the city from 2010 to 2012 .
Musk is making it excruciating clear who ’s welcome on the new Twitter . And it ’s hoi polloi who look and spill the beans like Musk .
Black lifetime MatterElon MuskJack DorseyMuskObamaX ( Twitter )
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