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- Elon Musk claimed Twitter once had a Slack channel that was a fan club for Dr. Anthony Fauci.
- Musk’s claim came after he slammed Fauci for his role as the White House’s chief medical advisor.
- Musk was strongly anti-lockdown and has previously suggested Fauci should be prosecuted.
Elon Musk on Wednesday claimed that Twitter staff had a group on Slack that was a fan club for Dr. Anthony Fauci, the US’s top infectious disease expert.
Musk’s comments were included in a Twitter thread in which he posted various links to articles about Fauci, including a Newsweek report about documents showing that Fauci wasn’t truthful to Congress.
“Despite these glaring issues, Twitter nonetheless had an internal Slack channel unironically called “Fauci Fan Club”,” Musk tweeted.
It wasn’t clear what was discussed in the channel which Musk was referring to, or how many members were part of it. Fauci and Twitter didn’t immediately respond to Insider’s request for comment, made outside of normal US operating hours.
In a later tweet, Musk said he invited Community Notes, Twitter’s tool that allows users to add context notes to potentially misleading posts, to “correct or amend” his thread.
Like some prominent Republicans, Musk has criticized Fauci for his handling of the COVID-19 pandemic. Musk has been a prominent anti-lockdown activist, and the billionaire has made various allegations against the White House’s chief medical advisor, while endorsing the GOP and sharing anti-Democratic conspiracy theories.
He has also suggested in a tweet that Fauci should be prosecuted. “My pronouns are Prosecute/Fauci,” Musk tweeted on December 11.
Fauci plans this month to step down as the director of the National Institute of Health and President Biden’s top medical adviser, he said in a New York Times op-ed.
Since Musk took over Twitter in late October, employees have been careful about what to post on the company’s Slack. Platformer reported in November that some Twitter employees started removing Slack messages out of fear of Musk not liking the content. The report came after Musk fired several workers for criticizing him on Twitter and then terminated at least two dozen staff in a late-night email.
