{"id":196813,"date":"2026-08-21T14:59:11","date_gmt":"2026-08-21T14:59:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/196813\/"},"modified":"2026-08-21T14:59:11","modified_gmt":"2026-08-21T14:59:11","slug":"elon-musk-calls-for-derek-chauvin-to-be-freed-claims-he-was-unjustly-convicted","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/196813\/","title":{"rendered":"Elon Musk calls for Derek Chauvin to be freed, claims he was \u2018unjustly convicted\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

Elon Musk<\/a> has moved from floating the idea of clemency for Derek Chauvin to demanding his release outright.<\/p>\n

In a post on X Wednesday<\/a>, the billionaire wrote that the former Minneapolis officer was \u201cunjustly convicted of murder, therefore he should be freed,\u201d asserting that Chauvin neither caused George Floyd\u2019s death nor intended for anyone to die. He closed by declaring, \u201cThat is the truth.\u201d As of Friday (Aug. 21) morning, the post had drawn roughly 13.5 million views. Musk\u2019s post comes a day after lawyers for Chauvin petitioned the state of Minnesota to dismiss the murder charges against Chauvin in Floyd\u2019s 2020 killing. <\/a><\/p>\n

Derek Chauvin was unjustly convicted of murder, therefore he should be freed. <\/p>\n

The facts show that he was not the cause of death, nor did he at any time intend for a death to occur. Whatever else he may be, he is not a murderer. <\/p>\n

That is the truth.<\/p>\n

\u2014 Elon Musk (@elonmusk) August 19, 2026<\/a> <\/p>\n

The claim runs against the evidentiary record. The Hennepin County Medical Examiner ruled Floyd\u2019s death a homicide, attributing it to cardiopulmonary arrest complicating law enforcement subdual, restraint and neck compression. <\/p>\n

A Minnesota jury convicted Chauvin in 2021 on three counts; second-degree murder, third-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter. He separately pleaded guilty to federal charges of violating Floyd\u2019s civil rights, an admission that carries its own legal weight independent of the state verdict.<\/p>\n

This isn\u2019t Musk\u2019s first involvement. As TMZ<\/a> noted, when Ben Shapiro campaigned last year for a federal pardon, Musk amplified the effort by calling it \u201csomething to think about.\u201d The difference now is the absence of hedging.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s also a practical ceiling on what a pardon could accomplish. Presidential clemency reaches only federal convictions, meaning Chauvin\u2019s Minnesota sentence would remain in force regardless. He is serving concurrent state and federal terms, with release projected for 2037 and parole eligibility around 2035.<\/p>\n

The timing carries weight for Black Americans<\/a> who watched the nine minutes of footage that made Floyd\u2019s name a global reference point and who have spent six years absorbing arguments that what they saw wasn\u2019t what it appeared to be. Musk\u2019s platform gives that argument a reach few individuals can match.<\/p>\n

Musk offered no evidence supporting his characterization of the facts, and he did not address the medical examiner\u2019s determination or Chauvin\u2019s federal guilty plea.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Elon Musk has moved from floating the idea of clemency for Derek Chauvin to demanding his release outright.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":196814,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[122],"tags":[87173,202,15446,203],"class_list":["post-196813","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-elon-musk","tag-derek-chauvin","tag-elon-musk","tag-george-floyd","tag-musk"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@people\/117134096169324272","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/196813","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=196813"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/196813\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/196814"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=196813"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=196813"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=196813"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}