Elon Musk on Monday waded into the reporting around the gunman who killed eight people in a rampage at a mall in Allen, Texas, suggesting the shooter may have posted far-right content online in the lead up to the attack. Images and words from a Russian social media site profile believed to have belonged to the attacker, Mauricio Garcia, were shared on Twitter by Bellingcat researcher Aric Toler. The posts depicted an apparent years-long obsession with Nazism and included screenshots from Tim Pool’s YouTube talk show and a positive reference to the anti-LGBTQ Twitter account Libs of TikTok. Right-wing figures have questioned the authenticity of Garcia’s purported account, with Twitter commentator Ian Miles Cheong calling it “suspect” on Monday. “It’s a Psyop and it’s not even good,” Josie Glabach, a contributor to Pool’s podcast, wrote in a quote tweet of Cheong’s post, suggesting Garcia’s post could have been faked to influence public opinion about the massacre. “This gets weirder by the moment,” Musk replied to Glabach’s tweet. Later, Glabach tweeted: “So that I’m clear on this, a Jewish lady and a milquetoast fence sitter radicalized a Mexican neo nazi from a Russian website into slaughtering white Texans according to the CIA operative who broke the story,” apparently referring to Libs of TikTok creator Chaya Raichik and Pool as the supposed radicalizers and Toler as the “CIA operative.” “Very strange,” Musk replied.
