Musk, who previously said he nearly ended up in hospital after his third vaccine shot, has been heavily criticised by several X users.
The founder of X (formerly known as Twitter) shared a meme bordering on vaccine denial, for which he was attacked by several users. Elon Musk shared a meme on X’s website that read:
Imagine having a vaccine so safe that you have to threaten to take it, for a disease so deadly that you have to get tested to learn about it.
Doctors also found his meme to be deeply insensitive to those who lost their families to Covid. One X user wrote:
A disease so deadly you have to be tested to know you have it”. You know they have to test for cancer too right.” Another pointed out: “Other diseases you have to be tested for to know if you’ve got it; Cancers, HIV/AIDS and Coronary Heart Disease.
A third, claiming to be an NHS doctor said:
Hi Elon. NHS palliative care doctor here. I cannot begin to count the number of people I witnessed suffocating to death from Covid-19. How dare you trivialise their deaths, their families’ grief, & the trauma experienced by frontline staff?
Another user, whose bio seemed to indicate he was a doctor, wrote:
Oh good our Meme Lord with the cowboy hat on backwards is showing how “middle of the road he is,” sharing outright antivaxxine stuff. Btw, other deadly illnesses that require testing to uncover: Cancer Thromboembolisms Kidney disease Aneurysms.
Another wondered:
He’s now a vaccine sceptic? How long will it take him to become a climate denying electric car guy?
Earlier, Musk wrote on X:
My concern was more the outrageous demand that people *must* take the vaccine and multiple boosters to do anything at all. That was messed up. As for myself, I got original Covid before the vaccine was out (mild cold symptoms) and had to get three vaccines for travels. The third shot almost sent me to [the] hospital. It’s not like I don’t believe in vaccines – I do. However, the cure cannot be potentially worse than the disease. And public debate over efficacy should not be shut down.
The US Center for Disease Control and Prevention states that the Covid-19 vaccine has a number of side effects, the most common of which are pain and swelling at the injection site, fatigue, headache, chills or muscle aches. In rarer cases, some recipients have experienced myocarditis or pericarditis – inflammation of the heart muscle or its outer lining. This condition usually goes away on its own, but some patients may require additional treatment.
However, Elon Musk stated in an interview with the Times Magazine in September 2021 that he was extremely pro-vaccine and that he, at the time, believed the science is clear. Musk was named Person of the Year in the same year.
