Vice President JD Vance attempted to defend on Friday an employee of Elon Musk’s cost-cutting Department of Government Efficiency who made racist posts on social media promoting eugenics.
Marko Elez, 25, resigned from DOGE after The Wall Street Journal asked the White House about comments he made on a now-deleted social media account.
Some of the posts reportedly included racist remarks like, “Just for the record, I was racist before it was cool,” “You could not pay me to marry outside of my ethnicity” and “Normalize Indian hate.”
After Elon Musk asked people on X, to vote on whether Elez should be rehired, the vice president decided to weigh in with his thoughts:
“Here’s my view:
“I obviously disagree with some of Elez’s posts, but I don’t think stupid social media activity should ruin a kid’s life. We shouldn’t reward journalists who try to destroy people. Ever. So I say bring him back. If he’s a bad dude or a terrible member of the team, fire him for that.”
Musk responded to Vance’s post by saying that Elez “will be brought back,” adding that “to erri is human, to forgive devine.
It’s possible Vance made the post hoping to be seen as a strong defender of free speech, no matter how awful.
But considering Vance’s wife and the mother of his children, Usha Vance, is the daughter of Indian immigrants, many people saw Vance’s pro-Elez tweet as a sign of weakness. Others just had a hard time following along.
Vance has previously been accused of not vigorously defending his family against racist attacks.
Last July, after Trump supporter and white supremacist Nick Fuentes asked rhetorically, “Do we really expect that the guy who has an Indian wife and named their kid Vivek is going to support white identity?” Vance was criticized for the tepid response he gave to Megyn Kelly.
“Obviously, she’s not a white person, and we’ve been accused — attacked — by some white supremacists over that,” he continued. “But I just — I love Usha. She’s such a good mom, she’s such a brilliant lawyer and I’m so proud of her.”