Elon Musk has been called many things since his meteoric rise to fame and fortune in the late 1990s. Tech mogul, entrepreneur, investor, philanthropist, and innovator would all fit comfortably on his business card. But when you look at Elon Musk today, would the phrase "national security risk" jump to mind? That was the case with Andrew Couts at Wired Magazine this week, but Couts isn't suggesting that Musk is selling our government's high-tech secrets to the Chinese or the Russians. Nor is he exporting weapons to our adversaries. Instead, Couts is declaring that Elon presents a risk to national security because of a joke that he made in the wake of the recent assassination attempt on Donald Trump's life in Florida. He wasn't making fun of Trump for being at risk, however. Someone on Twitter posed the question of why someone would want to kill Trump. Musk responded in a (now deleted) post by pointing out that nobody seems to be trying to kill Joe Biden or Kamala Harris. After being called out on his comment, Musk responded by describing it simply as a "joke that fell flat." That doesn't seem to be satisfying anyone thus far.

Shortly following reports of an apparent second assassination attempt against former US president and 2024 Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump, Elon Musk decided to speak up.

“And no one is even trying to assassinate Biden/Kamala 🤔,” Musk, X’s owner, wrote in a now deleted post, in response to another person asking, “Why they want to kill Donald Trump?”

After deleting the post—which could be interpreted as a call to murder President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris, Trump’s Democratic opponent in the US presidential election—Musk indicated that it was merely a joke that fell flat given the context. “Well, one lesson I’ve learned is that just because I say something to a group and they laugh doesn’t mean it’s going to be all that hilarious as a post on 𝕏,” he wrote, adding, “Turns out that jokes are WAY less funny if people don’t know the context and the delivery is plain text.”

Even I will admit that the timing of Musk's "joke" (if you want to call it that) was dubious at best. Shortly after someone attempts to murder a leading presidential candidate (for the second time in barely two months) is probably not an appropriate time for that sort of humor. But with that said, Musk's choice to completely backpedal simply strikes me as wrong as well. Most of us have fired off a comment that might be seen as being in poor taste from time to time and simply saying, "Oh, I was just kidding" rarely does anything to clear the air.

Musk probably could have done himself a favor by admitting that the timing was off, but also noting that he was making a valid point. When was the last time you recall someone making any sort of serious attempt on the life of either Joe Biden or Kamala Harris? I certainly can't think of one, at least not during this election cycle. It's true that both Biden and Harris have better, more fully staffed Secret Service details than Donald Trump (an issue that still requires immediate attention) but they both show up in very public venues where such an attempt could reasonably be made. Why doesn't it happen?

That question opens up a valid and potentially important topic heading into this election and it's one that Musk could have sunk his teeth into. The reality is that the conservative movement in this country is tremendously worried about the negative impacts that Joe Biden's policies have had on the country and remains alarmed at the possibility that we could see four more years of those policies under Harris. Conversely, the progressive left movement currently supporting Harris has simply lost its ever-loving mind and its members have allowed themselves to wallow in a pit of burning hatred for the Bad Orange Man. One of those governing philosophies is currently breeding a thankfully tiny subset of homicidal maniacs.

Even if we leave all of that aside, however, how can someone translate Musk's poorly timed joke into an opportunity to label him a national security threat? Elon Musk is producing some of the cutting-edge Artificial Intelligence tools that are growing increasingly pervasive in the Pentagon and our nation's intelligence organizations. His rockets carry some of our most sensitive, top-secret satellites into orbit. Musk's companies have been made privy to secrets that many career Intelligence Community officials have never seen. If we're really handing over that sort of data to someone who could in any way be perceived as a true national security threat, we have bigger problems than Elon Musk that need to be wrestled to the ground.

But that's not what's going on over at Wired as far as I'm concerned. As long as Elon Musk "stayed in his lane" and cranked out engineering marvels that advanced our national efforts in multiple scientific arenas and kept ladling out cash by the bucket-loads, everyone loved him. But as soon as he stuck his nose into the political arena and appeared to be ready to sign on with Donald Trump and the MAGA agenda, he had a target on his back. His progressive critics aren't even bothering to pretend otherwise.