The White House has condemned Elon Musk for tweeting “no one is even trying to assassinate Biden/Kamala” in response to an X user asking “Why they want to kill Donald Trump?”

The president’s office issued a statement Monday criticizing the “irresponsible” post, which was accompanied by an emoji face with a raised eyebrow. The White House said: “Violence should only be condemned, never encouraged or joked about. This rhetoric is irresponsible.” The statement added that there should be “no place for political violence or for any violence ever in our country”.

The Secret Service also said on Monday it was aware of a post by the billionaire on the X social network. Musk, who owns the platform, formerly known as Twitter, made the post after a man suspected of planning to assassinate Donald Trump at his golf course in West Palm Beach was arrested on Sunday.

Musk, himself a Trump supporter, was quickly criticized by X users from the left and right, who said they were concerned his words to his nearly 200m X followers could incite violence against Biden and Harris.

The tech billionaire deleted the post but not before the Secret Service, tasked with protecting current and former presidents, vice-presidents and other notable officials, took notice.

“The Secret Service is aware of the social media post made by Elon Musk and as a matter of practice, we do not comment on matters involving protective intelligence,” a spokesperson said in an email. “We can say, however, that the Secret Service investigates all threats related to our protectees.”

The spokesperson declined to specify whether the agency had reached out to Musk, who seemed to suggest in follow-up posts that he had been making a joke.

“Well, one lesson I’ve learned is that just because I say something to a group and they laugh doesn’t mean it’s going to be all that hilarious as a post on X,” he later wrote. “Turns out that jokes are WAY less funny if people don’t know the context and the delivery is plain text.”

Harris, a Democrat running against the Republican nominee Trump in the 2024 election, and Biden both issued statements on Sunday night expressing relief that Trump had not been harmed.

• This article was amended on 16 September 2024. An earlier version stated that Elon Musk had tweeted “Why they want to kill Donald Trump?” It was later corrected to make clear he was replying to that tweet.

• Elon Musk
• Donald Trump
• Kamala Harris
• US politics
• X
• Joe Biden
• Secret Service
• news