Elon Musk removes X post about Biden, Harris assassination threats after criticism.

• Elon Musk deleted a post on X about the absence of assassination threats against President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris, which he had previously written.
• On Sunday, a second apparent assassination attempt on Donald Trump occurred at his West Palm Beach golf club, and the post about it was published hours later.
• In July, Trump received Musk's endorsement after surviving an assassination attempt at a Pennsylvania rally.

Elon Musk, CEO and majority owner, wrote and subsequently deleted a Sunday post on X that seemed to question why there weren't more assassination threats made against President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris.

After a second apparent assassination attempt against former President Donald Trump, Musk posted a message on X with 197.8 million followers.

The prompt for the post was generated by an X user who inquired, "What motivates individuals to want to assassinate Donald Trump?"

Musk responded with a skeptical emoticon, stating, "No one is attempting to assassinate Biden/Kamala."

Immediately after posting, Musk faced backlash. Despite this, he defended his stance for nearly 9 hours before ultimately deleting the post.

At least 1.3 million users had viewed Musk's tweet, with over 3,000 users reposting it and at least 18,000 users liking it.

After the initial post was deleted, Musk wrote two more X posts stating that the original one was misunderstood as an unfunny joke.

"Just because a group laughs at something I say doesn't mean it will be funny as a post on X," Musk wrote at 2:58 a.m. E.T. on Monday.

Two minutes after the post, he replied: "Jokes are less funny when people don't understand the context and the delivery is plain text."

CNBC did not receive an immediate response from the Trump campaign regarding Musk's post.

On Sunday, CNBC did not receive a response from spokespeople for X press relations or from Musk himself regarding a request for comment.

The White House denounced Musk's language in a statement Monday.

"The White House spokesperson Andrew Bates stated that violence should never be encouraged or joked about, and that it is irresponsible to do so. President Biden and Vice President Harris condemned political violence and any violence in general, and urged everyone to take action to prevent further violence following yesterday's disturbing news."

On Sunday, the FBI reported that an assassination attempt on Trump resulted in no harm to him.

At approximately 1:50 p.m. E.T., while Trump was golfing at his West Palm Beach club, the former president was hurriedly escorted to a secure location, just seconds after the Secret Service fired at a rifle-wielding assailant who was positioned 300 to 500 yards away from Trump.

On Monday, Ryan Wesley Routh appeared in court for the first time as a suspect.

In July, Trump received Musk's endorsement, hours after surviving an assassination attempt at a Pennsylvania rally.

The former president and billionaire entrepreneur, who were once at odds, have now formed an alliance, marking a significant shift from their public disagreements two years ago.

Musk stated that he played a role in establishing and financing the pro-Trump political action committee, known as America PAC.

Trump has not ruled out Musk's proposal to create a government efficiency commission, which he has volunteered to lead.

— CNBC's Lora Kolodny contributed reporting from San Francisco.