elon musk answered a speech about trans surgery with "death sentence." he said it in may too. we checked.

via Erin in the Morning and Musk's own posts

"Those who mutilate children should receive a death sentence."

That is the whole of Elon Musk's reply, posted Wednesday, Sept. 30, at 18:25 UTC, to the account of James Esses, who was promoting a speech titled "Reclaiming the Hippocratic Oath: The Case for Criminalisation of 'Sex Reassignment Surgery'." By Saturday it had more than 44,000 likes. Erin in the Morning reported it Friday.

Here is the part nobody else seems to have noticed. Musk said it in May. On May 18 he replied to another account: "Actually, I think anyone who mutilates children should get the death sentence." That one has more than 46,000 likes. In 2023 his version was lobbying to criminalize the care. The sentence keeps getting shorter and the penalty keeps getting bigger.

He did not name anyone, and his reply does not say who exactly he means. It does not have to. The speech he was answering is about criminalizing a form of medical care, and the people who provide that care are doctors, whose names are a search away on the platform he owns.

We are not going to pretend this is a policy proposal. It is the owner of the website, telling everyone on it, twice now, that whoever he means by "those who mutilate children" should be executed, in a reply to a speech about trans medical care. Write it down. We did.