Elon Musk has taken to posting the identities of relatively unknown government officials and federal workers whose jobs he wants to eliminate, and his followers are taking it upon themselves to harass and threaten those they can find.
Following a series of posts from Musk earlier this week highlighting the names and titles of federal workers whose jobs he called “fake,” the targets of his social media activity are facing a barrage of online abuse, according to a report from CNN on Wednesday. Many of the employees highlighted by Musk do not have public-facing jobs, and they have done nothing other than hold a title that displeases the billionaire who’s anointed himself Donald Trump’s co-president and is expected to help the president-elect slash government bureaucracy.
CNN’s review of Musk’s prolific posting habits found that over the course of the past week, the billionaire boosted posts on his website revealing the names and job titles of four federal employees working in climate policy and regulation. The four targets were all women, and Musk — who owns the electric vehicle company Tesla — has a vested interest in climate policy.
In one instance, Musk quote-tweeted a post highlighting the role of a woman who works as a “Director of Climate Diversification” at the U.S. International Development Finance Corp. (DFC), a relatively obscure government agency. “So many fake jobs,” Musk captioned his repost.
A self-styled “anti-woke” crusader, Musk likely took the word “diversification” to mean the “D” in “DEI.” A spokesperson for the DFC told The Wall St. Journal earlier this week that the employee — who holds degrees in engineering, business, and water science from Oxford and MIT — serves a highly technical role focused on identifying innovative solutions to help protect American agriculture and infrastructure from the effects of natural disasters.
CNN’s investigation found that the employee had shut down several of her social media accounts following Musk’s tweet.