Elon Musk tweets (then deletes) opposition to Trump's travel ban
Commentary: The Tesla CEO seems to regret three tweets about government policy.
Technically Incorrect offers a slightly twisted take on the tech that's taken over our lives.
Second thoughts?
Senior business figures seem unsure how to react to the president and, specifically, his order temporarily suspending immigration from seven Muslim-majority countries.
While the order itself has been suspended by a court and protested by many tech CEOs, the whole issue of whether to support the president -- and how to show it or not -- has proved thorny.
On Wednesday, Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk seemed to have decided to offer definitive comment.
In three tweets, spotted by Business Insider among others, Musk offered his updated views.
First he said: "Regarding govt. policy, there are often things that happen that most people don't agree with. This is normal for a functional democracy."
To which he added, using interesting words: "The Muslim immigration ban is not right."
He ended this stream of Twittered thought with: "They rarely warrant a public statement. However, the ban on Muslim immigrants from certain countries rises to this level. It is not right."
Within minutes, these tweets were all deleted. A Tesla spokesman wouldn't go beyond a further comment from Musk on Twitter.
He replied to astrophotographer Sam Cornwell who asked why he'd deleted the tweets: "they were earlier drafts that I accidentally published. I said the same thing a week already."
I failed to find quite such forceful public statements by Musk in the recent past. He did say that the ban was "not the best way to confront the country's challenges." Tesla, moreover, did join the many tech companies fighting the order in court.
Of all the tech CEOs, Musk's position on Trump has been one of the most complex. In November, he declared that the president doesn't reflect well on the US. By January, he'd agreed to sit on the president's economic advisory council and insisted that engaging in important economic issues with the president serves "the greater good."
The deleted tweets seem to add another layer of complexity.
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