Elon Musk Wants Trump to Pardon Derek Chauvin, and That’s Enough Reason to Worry

Musk, co-signing an idea from Ben Shapiro, does have Trump's ear. And even if a pardon won't overturn the state convictions, it would still be an injustice to George Floyd's family and Black America.

One of the most frustrating things about Donald Trump’s return to the White House is that, periodically, my mind goes back to the day we all thought it was all over.

By Nov. 7, 2020, just about every major news outlet had projected Joe Biden to be America’s 46th president, meaning after Biden was inaugurated, I would no longer be subject to Trump’s mindlessly regurgitated lies on a daily basis. His smug bigotry, his unearned confidence, his boorish, childish behavior, the butthole that forms in the middle of his face every time he says a word with a long “o” or “u” sound, the stupid thing he does with his hands where it looks like he’s trying to open and close a normal size book but his tiny baby appendages just can’t handle the job — it was all finally over.

At the time, it never crossed my mind that we might be seeing a second Trump presidency four years down the line. I was just relieved that this bumbling moron’s miserable administration was now a closed chapter.

I think of the feeling I had on Nov. 7, 2020, because it reminds me of the feeling of relief I had on April 20, 2021, when a Minnesota jury found ex-Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin guilty on state charges of unintentional second-degree murder, third-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter for the killing of George Floyd. I felt that feeling again on June 25, 2021, when Chauvin was sentenced to 22½ years in prison. I felt it again when Chauvin pleaded guilty to federal charges of depriving Floyd of his civil rights (and that of a 14-year-old Black child he also egregiously brutalized), and then again when he was sentenced to another 21 years in federal prison behind those charges. (Chauvin is serving both sentences concurrently.)

It hadn’t crossed my mind that much of the justice Floyd and his family received could be undone.

On Tuesday, Trump’s partner in neo-apartheid, Elon Musk, reposted a video recorded by sniveling conservative talking head and unintentional “Evil Peewee Herman” cosplayer Ben Shapiro, who mused that Trump should pardon Chauvin, presumably of his federal crimes since Trump has no power to pardon state crimes. (I’m going to assume Shapiro knew that. I mean, it’s basic constitutional law, not an exam on how to please a woman when you don’t believe in WAP.)

“If we are issuing pardons, however, there is one person that President Trump should pardon from federal charges forthwith,” said Shapiro, referencing the recent Trump pardons of more than 1,500 Jan. 6 terrorists. “President Trump should, in fact, pardon Derek Chauvin.

“But when it came to BLM, the inciting event for the BLM riots that caused $2 billion in property damage in the United States and set America’s race relations on their worst footing in my lifetime was, in fact, the railroading of Derek Chauvin in the death of George Floyd,” Shapiro continued.

Now, listening to Shapiro obnoxiously repeat the words “in fact” during a factless diatribe was annoying enough, but this delusional white man is really out here suggesting that a jury found Chauvin guilty because America was intimidated by Black Lives Matter protests, the overwhelming majority of which were nonviolent. When in the entire history of America has any court of law felt compelled to throw a white cop in prison for two decades because pro-Black protesters were really passionate about the Black man the cop killed?

It’s not like Chauvin was found guilty by one single jury feeling the “pressure” of Black people’s collective rage. Chauvin was found guilty, then he pleaded guilty, then he appealed his convictions multiple times only to be told: Nah, you stay your modern-day-lynch-happy-ass in jail!

Anyway, I wasn’t really worried about Trump dusting off his pardoning shoes for Chauvin just because Ben fucking Shapiro said he should do it — but then I saw that Musk cosigned the idea that it would be “something to think about.”

See, now I’m worried.

Again, even if Trump did decide to pander to his already-thoroughly-pandered-to supporters by undoing Chauvin’s federal sentence, it still wouldn’t set the killer cop free because he would still have to serve out the two decades and change he received from the state of Minnesota. Still, it would be a slap in Black people’s faces if the president chipped away at the justice that was signed, sealed and delivered to Floyd’s family and Black people across the country who are tired of watching cops treat us any old kind of way and then go about their days like nothing happened.

I remember thinking that no matter what work in the fight against systemic racism in America there is left to do, the George Floyd thing was handled. Now, what if it’s not?

I mean, what if Musk really gets in Trump’s ear on this? The president at least appears to trust this pseudo-tech genius, at least enough to grant him unfettered access to Americans’ health and financial data, sensitive government information and other info the job-stealing migrant with no experience in federal office should have. (Mind you, we’re talking about DOGE, a federal office that may or may not legally exist.)

Even without Musk whispering sweet white supremacist nothings in Trump’s ear about issuing pardons to extrajudicial death dealers, every day of Trump’s presidency is a day to worry about what civil rights progress will be undone next.

Today, it’s the USDA suspending a more than three-decade-old HBCU scholarship program to avoid running afoul of Trump’s unending war on all things diversity, equity and inclusion. Tomorrow, it could be Trump continuing his pander-o-thon to police officers (like the ones he didn’t give a shit about on Jan. 6) by issuing sweeping pardons of cops serving federal time for unaliving an unarmed Black person.

Actually, Trump already has recently pardoned two officers with D.C.’s Metropolitan Police Department who were convicted of crimes including second-degree murder, conspiracy to obstruct and obstruction of justice for the killing of Black motorist Karon Hylton-Brown.

In 2020, not long after Floyd’s murder, Hylton-Brown was driving a moped when Officer Terence Sutton and Lt. Andrew Zabavsky spotted him driving without wearing a helmet and chased him down at “unreasonable speeds,” causing him to crash. After the collision, as Hylton-Brown lay dying in the street, instead of doing everything they could to render aid, the cops attempted to cover up their crimes by turning off their body cameras, tampering with evidence at the scene and misleading their superior officers about what happened.

Sutton, who was sentenced to 66 months behind bars, and Zabavsky, who was given 48 months, were guilty. They were guilty, and they were convicted, and they were given light-ass sentences, which they would still be serving if not for the D.C. Police Union begging Trump to pardon their officers. Trump pardoned Sutton and Zabavsky, and then the MPD immediately reinstated them. And rinse and repeat.

Trump doesn’t give a fuck about Black people. For all the superficial “look at my African-American over here” pandering he does, virtually every action he’s taken since Jan. 20 has been an indication of how swiftly he’d throw us under the bus just so his cultists continue to sing his praises.

I'd love to think Trump pardoning Chauvin is a thing that probably won't happen. But that’s what I thought about the idea of Trump getting his rust-orange booty-doo all over the Oval Office furniture again in 2025 — and yet, here we are.