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Elon Musk doubles down after vulgar criticism of coronavirus lockdowns

Tesla CEO Elon Musk still has more thoughts to share about the coronavirus lockdowns.

Musk continued his rant about coronavirus shelter-in-place measures on Twitter on Thursday morning, sharing an article that claimed America’s response to the coronavirus was based on panic, not facts, adding: “Why forced isolation is bad.” 

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He also shared a graph from the California Health and Human Services Agency website depicting hospital bed occupancy in California.

“Hospitals in California have been half empty this whole time,” he said. 

When one user said they would unfollow Musk over his comments, the tech billionaire had a two-word response: “Bon voyage”

Elon Musk
Dan Taylor

Thursday’s tweets come a day after Musk railed against shelter-in-place guidelines during Tesla’s quarterly earnings call. 

Musk called the measures “fascist” and later used an expletive to express his frustration.

“To say that they cannot leave their house and they’ll be arrested if they do? This is fascist,” Musk said. “This is not democratic, this is not freedom. Give people back their goddamn freedom.”

Neither the California or federal shelter-in-place guidelines penalize those who go outside with arrest.

Musk first vented about the stay-home orders on Wednesday, tweeting “FREE AMERICA NOW,” which he has since pinned to the top of his Twitter account. 

The outspoken billionaire has 33.4 million followers on Twitter and has often weighed in about the coronavirus pandemic, infamously tweeting on March 6: “The coronavirus panic is dumb.”

Much of America has shelter-in-place orders at least through the end of May, with exceptions by some states like Texas, Florida, and others. However, experts have warned that lifting restrictions too soon could result in a surge of coronavirus case numbers and more deaths in the U.S.

As of Thursday, there have been more than 1.7 million confirmed cases in the U.S. and 61,570 deaths in the country. 

For the latest updates on the novel coronavirus outbreak, visit the World Health Organization’s COVID-19 page.

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