Twitter CEO Elon Musk hit back at former CIA Director John Brennan on Monday, telling him “Your house is glass” after Brennan implied that Musk was “destructive” and “attention-craving.”
The exchange was an aftershock of Musk’s latest self-generated political storm, which kicked off on Sunday when he tweeted that his “pronouns” are “Prosecute/Fauci,” simultaneously mocking preferred pronouns and criticizing Dr. Anthony Fauci, the face of the U.S. government’s response to COVID-19.
When former astronaut Scott Kelly countered that Fauci was a “dedicated public servant whose sole motivation was saving lives,” Musk clarified that Fauci “lied to Congress” about funding controversial gain-of-function research in a Wuhan, China virology lab, which some theorize to have been the origin of COVID-19.
Brennan, the former CIA director, also took to Fauci’s defense with remarks that would draw Musk’s attention.
Brennan initially replied to Musk’s tweet to say Fauci is a “national hero,” while Musk “will be remembered most for fueling public hate & divisions.”
He returned to the tweet later in the afternoon to add: “Good people in democracies need a more effective way to prevent attention-craving, emotionally immature, & highly devious individuals, esp those of means, from being socially, culturally, & politically destructive. We certainly seem to have far too many of them lately.”
The following morning, Musk made a simple, four-word reply to Brennan’s second tweet: “Your house is glass”.
In recent weeks, Musk has been releasing internal documents that show the FBI’s and other agencies’ roles in influencing Twitter’s content moderation ahead of the 2020 election. The government’s warnings of incoming Russian disinformation reportedly led to restrictions on sharing the New York Post’s Hunter Biden laptop story, which has since been authenticated.
Brennan was one of more than 50 former senior intelligence officials who signed a letter saying the laptop story “has all the classic earmarks of a Russian information operation.”
