Gavin Newsom accused tech billionaire Elon Musk of “encouraging looting” amid an escalating spat over disinformation surrounding the deadly Los Angeles fires.
California’s governor says Musk, President-elect Donald Trump’s wealthiest supporter, posted messages on social media he owns unfairly accusing the governor and his fellow Democrats of decriminalizing looting.・After reposting it to Platform X, he strongly criticized it.
“Stop encouraging looting by lying to people that it’s decriminalized. It’s not,” Newsom wrote. “It’s still illegal, as it always has been.”
The clash comes amid fears of further looting after the owner, who was forced to abandon his home as the fire spread, later returned to find his belongings had been robbed. I woke up.
About 30 people were arrested, most on suspicion of looting, as the fire threatened to engulf several Los Angeles neighborhoods. A man dressed as a firefighter was found in a fire-damaged house and arrested. Two men were detained on Saturday in front of the Los Angeles home of Vice President Kamala Harris, who Trump won and returned to the White House in November, but were later released after no evidence of robbery was found.
The exchange between Newsom and Musk began after a user posted a television interview in which the governor said he had “zero tolerance for looters.”
The user wrote above the video: “Looting: Newsom and the California Democratic Party literally decriminalized looting, barred police from arresting looters, and barred prosecutors from prosecuting looters. Now he’s speaking out against looting. ”
Musk, a prominent Republican critic of the Democratic response to the fires, reposted the message with a clown emoji and a globe.
Trump, Musk and other leading Republicans have blamed the fires on liberal, “woke” policies and accused Democrats of prioritizing climate change and other public safety priorities. They focus on Los Angeles’ first female fire chief, Christine Crowley (who is gay), and portray a fire department focused on diversity, equity, and inclusion policies.
Unfounded accusations that Newsom decriminalized looting are a result of Prop. 47, a 2014 ballot initiative that reduced some misdemeanors from felonies to misdemeanors with the goal of freeing up jail space for more serious crimes. This appears to stem from Newsom’s opposition to the change.
This ballot provision was partially replaced in 2024 by another initiative, Proposition 36, which introduced harsher penalties for crimes such as shoplifting, vandalism, and theft in certain cases. Neither initiative explicitly mentions looting.
Newsom opposed Prop. 36 and initially proposed a competing bill to keep it off the ballot.
The governor expanded on complaints of disinformation, including from President Trump, who claimed that firefighters were hampered in putting out the fire because of a lack of water in local reservoirs. Water experts say water levels in Los Angeles reservoirs were at record levels when the fire broke out.
“The state’s reservoirs here in Southern California are completely full,” Newsom told NBC. “I don’t believe that such misinformation and disinformation benefits or helps us.”
After retaking the White House on January 20, President Trump has threatened to withhold disaster aid to California, amid calls from Republicans that relief money should come with “conditions.” suggested.
The idea of using the fires to extract political concessions from California’s ruling Democratic Party appears to have been voiced by Republican Sen. John Barrasso of Wyoming, who told CBS’ Face the Nation that the fires said it was “the result of gross mismanagement in California by our elected officials.” Official.”
“We can’t have a blank check on this… because as people rebuild… they want to make sure something like this never happens again,” he said, pushing for the idea of a “conditional” aid package. .
“I believe the Liberal government’s policies have made these fires much worse.”
The proposal drew an angry response from Democrats.
“This is shameful. There should never be strings attached to disaster aid,” Democratic U.S. Representative Maxwell Frost of Florida posted on social media.
Newsom said Trump made similar threats in response to the California fires when he was first president.
“He went to California in 2018, before I became governor, and he learned that the people of Orange County were voting for him, and then he decided to donate,” he told NBC. spoke. “We take this issue so seriously that in the past it took us a little longer (to raise funds).”
