Fauci says he doesn’t ‘pay any attention’ to Musk after critical tweet

Anthony Fauci, President Biden’s chief medical adviser and the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said he does not “pay any attention” to Elon Musk following the new Twitter CEO’s tweet calling for Fauci to be prosecuted.

“I don’t respond to him,” Fauci told CNN’s David Axelrod for a podcast that will be released Thursday.

“I don’t pay any attention to him because that’s merely a distraction,” Fauci added.

“And if you get drawn into that, and I have to be honest, that cesspool of interaction … there’s no value added to that, David. It doesn’t help anything.”

A clip of the interview aired on Monday on “Erin Burnett OutFront.”

Musk received swift backlash after he tweeted his “pronouns are Prosecute/Fauci” on Sunday. Democratic lawmakers from Sen. Amy Klobuchar (Minn.) to Rep. Ritchie Torres (N.Y.) denounced Musk’s comments.

Former CIA Director John Brennan also criticized Musk, saying he is fueling hatred and division, and praised Fauci as a national hero.

Musk doubled down on his comments later on Sunday, responding to criticism from astronaut Scott Kelly, the twin brother of Sen. Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.). After Kelly told Musk that members of the LGBTQ community are “real people with real feelings” and that Fauci’s only motivation was saving lives, Musk wrote that he “strongly” disagrees.

“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 wrote. “As for Fauci, he lied to Congress and funded gain-of-function research that killed millions of people. Not awesome imo.”

Multiple congressional Republicans have pressed Fauci on whether the National Institutes of Health ever funded gain-of-function research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology as part of their allegations that the COVID-19 virus escaped from a lab in China. Gain-of-function research seeks to alter an organism to enhance some biological function.

Fauci has said that their claims are “entirely and completely incorrect.”

He has become a lightning rod among the GOP for criticism as he helped advise the Trump and Biden administrations through the COVID-19 pandemic, and House Republicans have discussed plans to investigate him in January.

Fauci, who plans to step down from his government positions next month, has said he would cooperate with any investigation.

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