Elon Musk on Sunday reacted to the destruction of a suspected Chinese 'spy' balloon by a US fighter aircraft, which had been over the US territory for several days. The balloon was floating off the coast of South Carolina and its presence shocked the intelligence community in the United States, who stated that the countries now rely on satellite technology to gather data. Washington called it a "clear violation" of US sovereignty and notified China about the shootdown on Saturday.
Now, reacting to the destruction, Mr Musk replied to a BBC article shared on Twitter on the US shooting down the airship over the Atlantic. Tesla and SpaceX CEO shared a funny meme showing the flying house featured in the 2009 animated movie 'Up' being shot down.
Take a look below:
Mr Musk's tweet quickly accumulated more than 267,000 likes. Several users replied to his post with more hilarious memes, while others called the SpaceX CEO a "comedian". "Very "cheeky" of you, @elonmusk," wrote one user. "I swear Elon is a better comedian than most on SNL," said another.
Meanwhile, China has confirmed that the balloon spotted flying over Latin America is Chinese. Beijing has expressed fury at Washington's decision to shoot down a device that it insists was an unnamed weather surveillance aircraft that had veered off course last week.
Its foreign ministry stated that the device was of a "civilian nature and used for flight tests". It also added that the US "seriously impacted and damaged" relations between the two nations by shooting the device down and lodged a formal complaint with the US embassy in Beijing.
