John Kirby Confronted About Elon Musk’s Anti-Semitism, Asked if Will Biden ‘Wean the Government’ Off of His Tech

CBS White House reporter Nancy Cordes asked John Kirby if the Biden administration plans to end its usage of all technologies that involve Elon Musk after the Tesla CEO’s enablement of anti-Semitism.

As Kirby took questions on Monday at the White House’s press briefing, Cordes brought up the White House’s condemnation last week when Musk agreed with an anti-Semitic trope post on X, formerly Twitter.

“This administration, this government is very reliant on Elon Musk, particularly SpaceX technology, Starlink technology,” Cordes said. “Have there been any efforts made to wean the government off of his technology or find some kind of replacement for it?”

“I’m not aware of any efforts to do that,” Kirby answered, “but we have been very clear about the rhetoric, and how inappropriate it is and we’ll call it out when we see it.”

“But is the president concerned that the Pentagon and NASA are so reliant on someone who holds these views and appears to even more routinely embrace conspiracy theories?” she asked.

Kirby answered by speaking broadly about the scope of engagement between the government, the defense industry, and the private sector.

“There is innovation out there in the private sector we would be foolish to walk away from,” he said. “I’m not aware of specific efforts to address our concerns over [Musk’s] rhetoric through the way that his companies provide support to our national security establishment, but that doesn’t mean that we accept or agree with or condone in any way that anti-Semitic rhetoric that he pushed.”

For days, Musk has been under fire as critics have slammed his anti-Semitic amplification. While Musk has been pushing back on the accusations, the backlash has sparked a renewed focus on his leadership of X and its platforming of hateful content.

Watch above via Fox News.