Elon Musk has recently ruffled a few feathers after he said that nobody should be "forcing" their pronouns onto anybody else.
Over the weekend, the 51-year-old Tesla CEO got into an online debate with former NASA astronaut and retired US Navy Captain Scott Kelly about the importance of pronouns - or lack of, in this case.
It all started when Musk tweeted that his pronouns are "Prosecute/Fauci."
This is likely a reference to Dr. Anthony Fauci, who is the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) at the U.S. National Institutes of Health. Fauci was the top medical advisor at the White House during the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020.
Let's just say the initial tweet didn't go down too well with social media users.
"Please sell @Twitter then delete your account," urged one user.
"Mr. Musk - That is an extremely juvenile + disrespectful tweet. As someone who commands a huge public platform [and] controls billions of dollars in personal [and] corporate resources, you might use this moment to consider how to interact with others in a more substantive [and] respectful way," added another.
However, things started getting heated when former NASA astronaut Scott Kelly decided to respond to the billionaire's controversial tweet.
"Elon, please don’t mock and promote hate toward already marginalized and at-risk-of-violence members of the #LGBTQ+ community," he said. "They are real people with real feelings. Furthermore, Dr Fauci is a dedicated public servant whose sole motivation was saving lives."
Though Kelly's response gained a better reception online, it seems as though the self-proclaimed "Chief Twit" wasn't going to let him have the last word.
In a lengthy retort, Musk publicly told Kelly that he "strongly disagrees" with his opinion, also adding that people shouldn't be "forcing" their pronouns on others.
"I strongly disagree. Forcing your pronouns upon others when they didn’t ask, and implicitly ostracizing those who don’t, is neither good nor kind to anyone."
He continued: "As for Fauci, he lied to Congress and funded gain-of-function research that killed millions of people. Not awesome imo."
This just provoked other health professionals to get involved.
The Dean of the National School of Tropical Medicine, Peter Hotez, criticized Musk for spreading "misinformation."
"For the record: Dr. Fauci has done nothing wrong, except serve our nation," he wrote in a series of tweets addressing the debate. "In the meantime, Mr. Musk should know that 200,000 Americans needlessly lost their lives from Covid due to this kind of antiscience rhetoric and disinformation. Elon, I’m asking you to take down this Tweet."
Later, in a separate tweet, Hotez also added: "Bottom line: antiscience aggression and disinformation was a leading cause of death in the United States in 2021 and 2022. Antiscience aggression kills more Americans than just about any other societal force."
Are we shocked at Musk's comments? Not really.
The SpaceX founder has always been pretty vocal about his disdain for pronouns.
He couldn't make it any clearer than this tweet back in 2020, when he - very maturely - tweeted: "Pronouns suck."
Yeah, that's the owner of Twitter, ladies and gentlemen...