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Who is Justin McCauley? Tesla employee arrested for threatening to kill Joe Biden and Elon Musk
A Tesla employee from Minnesota was arrested for allegedly threatening to kill US President Joe Biden and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk, confirmed Tesla Police.
A Tesla employee from Minnesota was arrested for allegedly threatening to kill US President Joe Biden and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk, confirmed Tesla Police.
On Tuesday, Justin McCauley, 31, who had tweeted that he was "planning to kill" Biden, Musk, X, and Tesla, was charged with felony terroristic threats.
“I will arrive in Texas, where the war has began on many fronts @X, @Tesla and ‘@JoeBiden @X @Tesla @Elonmusk, I am planning to Kill all of you,” he wrote on X (formerly Twitter).
According to a Kxan report, court documents state that McCauley's wife called Rogers Police when he declared that he was leaving for Texas and would never return. She informed authorities he had left his cell phone unattended so it couldn't be tracked.
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McCauley's encounter with police
When McCauley was approached by Oklahoman police last Friday, they say he told them he only wanted to speak with the president. "Wouldn't you want to talk to the president if you knew you were going to die tomorrow?" he allegedly remarked in response to a police's question.
McCauley was not arrested by law enforcement at that time as he did not meet the requirements for emergency detention, the documents stated. Further into the investigation, law enforcement started working with a Secret Service field agent in Dallas in order to get to the hotel in Oklahoma. However, the search warrant states that McCauley had already left the hotel by the time the field agent reached there.
Police later learned that McCauley worked at Tesla in Minnesota but was on workers’ compensation after suffering an injury.
When McCauley was pulled over by police on Sunday afternoon in Austin, he reportedly informed them he was driving to the Tesla Gigafactory to try to get in touch with CEO Musk to "provide him with a password only he would know about”. He was then taken into custody, the report added.
The day before his arrest, deputies responded to a terroristic threat at the Tesla Gigafactory in Austin. It's still unclear if the call was made by McCauley.
Following his arrest, McCauley faced charges of terroristic threat, a third-degree felony. He was taken to Travis County Jail on a $20,000 bond, according to court documents.
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Musk claims his life is in danger
In December 2022, Musk hinted, during an interview on Twitter Spaces, that he feared for his life.
"Frankly the risk of something bad happening to me, or even literally being shot, is quite significant,” he said during that two-hour Q&A chat on Twitter Spaces.
“It’s not that hard to kill somebody if you wanted to, so hopefully they don’t, and fate smiles upon the situation with me and it does not happen … There’s definitely some risk there,” he added.
