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STORY: Billionaire Elon Musk’s recent comments disparaging leading U.S. immunologist Dr. Anthony Fauci drew fire from the White House on Monday.

Musk appeared to suggest over the weekend criminal charges be brought against Fauci.

He tweeted on Sunday “my pronouns are Prosecute/Fauci” , a statement likely playing on the practice of clarifying pronouns in the LGBT community.

As the tweet went viral, Musk wrote “truth resonates”.

In another tweet later on, Musk claimed without evidence Fauci “lied to Congress” and the health expert funded pathogenic research that “killed millions of people”.

The statements from Musk, CEO of Twitter and electric car maker Tesla, appear to mirror similar unfounded right-wing jabs against Fauci, mainly from Republican leaders.

White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre responded to Musk’s comments on Monday.

“These attacks, these personal attacks that we have been seeing are dangerous, on Dr. Fauci and other public health professionals as well. They are disgusting, and they are divorced from reality, and we will continue to call that out and be very clear about that. Again, these are incredibly dangerous, these personal attacks we are seeing.”

Fauci has worked over 50 years in the government, and under seven U.S. presidential administrations.

But his handling of the global health crisis, and his blunt assessments from the White House podium, have led to him becoming a villain among conservatives who object to vaccination, social distancing and masking that he suggested in order to limit deaths from the virus.

Elon Musk has strong views against coronavirus lockdowns - he had lashed out against them in the past on Twitter - and he even called lockdown measures “fascist” during an earnings call in 2020.