The Biden administration is maintaining its relationship with Elon Musk’s SpaceX and Starlink companies despite condemning the CEO for amplifying antisemitic on X, a National Security Council (NSC) spokesperson said on Monday.
“There’s innovation out there in the private sector that we’d be foolish to walk away from,” NSC spokesman John Kirby said when asked if the White House was considering nixing its contracts with Musk’s companies.
“I’m not aware of any specific efforts to address our concerns over his rhetoric through the way that his companies provide support to our national security establishment,” he added.
Musk reposted an antisemitic post an X last week that claimed Jewish people pursued a “dialectical hatred against whites.” He shared the post with the comment, “You have said the actual truth.”
Kirby said that the technological potential of the contracts “doesn’t mean that we accept or agree with or condone in any way that antisemitic rhetoric that he pushed.”
The White House also condemned the remarks shortly after they happened.
“We condemn this abhorrent promotion of antisemitic and racist hate in the strongest terms, which runs against our core values as Americans,” spokesperson Andrew Bates said Friday.
Notably, companies including Disney, Apple and Comcast (NASDAQ:CMCSA) pulled advertising spending following Musk’s post.
Starlink technology has been commissioned by the Pentagon to deliver internet coverage to Ukraine during the country’s defense against the Russian invasion.
The company also won a government contract to build Starshield, a military version of Starlink still in development.
SpaceX, meanwhile, got federal permission to conduct a test launch of its Starship rocket in Texas over the weekend. The launch resulted in a short flight until the rocket self-destructed.
And while the White House isn’t moving away from its professional relationship with Musk, President Joe Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris and First Lady Jill Biden announced Monday that they created profiles on Threads, the Twitter-like platform created by Meta.
A spokesperson said the profiles had been in the works for weeks, however.
Contact Andrew Kessel at andrew.kessel@proactiveinvestors.com
Follow him on Twitter @andrew_kessel