Billionaire entrepreneur and Director of United States Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) Elon Musk on Saturday (February 8), set off quite a storm by announcing plans to rehire a former DOGE employee who resigned after his racist posts, one of which included the words 'Normalize Indian hate'.
"He will be brought back..." read Musk's post on X (formerly Twitter) a social media platform he owns. Musk quoted post by US Vice-President JD Vance who opined that the DOGE employee should be brought back.
Before Vance's post, Musk conducted a poll asked X users if the employee should be re-hired. Seventy-eight per cent of the respondents said yes.
Marko Elez, the DOGE employee, resigned on Thursday following Wall Street Journal report revealing his racist posts, said The Hill.
Report in The Hill contained several of Elez's hateful posts made from a now-deleted account.
“Normalize Indian hate,” said a post made in September.
“You could not pay me to marry outside of my ethnicity,” said another post, as reported by The Hill and The Wall Street Journal.
Musk's post declaring re-hiring of Elez has garnered nearly 150,000 likes and has had more than 14 million impressions.
However, people have reacted in various manner in comments on the post.
"Is he going to apologize for his err ? If so bring him back," said one comment.
"Apologize for exercising his right to free speech ... Hell No!" said another.
