A few days before the assassination attempt on Donald Trump, LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman had wished to make the former US president an "actual martyr". Hoffman has now clarified his remarks after it landed him in hot water following Saturday's shooting incident at Trump's Pennsylvania rally.
On social media site X, Hoffman said he was "horrified and saddened" over the fatal attack on Trump and wished him a speedy recovery.
Last week, attending the Allen & Company Sun Valley Conference, Hoffman reportedly said that he and fellow tech entrepreneur Peter Thiel had a fallout due to a "moral issue" -- as Thiel backed Trump.
Thiel was present in the audience and sarcastically thanked Hoffman for putting money behind lawsuits against the former US president. He said the legal action turned Trump into a "martyr."
In reply, Hoffman reportedly said, "Yeah, I wish I had made him an actual martyr".
After the attempt on Trump's life during a campaign rally on Saturday, Hoffman has now tried to clarify his remark in a lengthy post on X.
"At a recent business conference, Peter Thiel said that my lawsuit against Trump was 'turning a clown into a martyr.' In that context, I replied that I wished that Trump would martyr himself - meaning let himself be held accountable - for his assaults on and lies about women," Hoffman wrote.
He added, "Of course, I meant nothing about any sort of physical harm or violence, which I categorically deplore. I meant and mean accountability to the rule of law, such as unanimous guilty felony verdict by 12 jurors on 34 counts and an $84 million judgment for slander and lies about his sexual assault."
Hoffman went on to say that there was no place for political violence in our society.
"Assassination is not only categorically wrong but is also the assassination of democracy. It is abhorrent that anyone has tried to assassinate President Trump. Everyone, on all sides of this election, should condemn political violence loudly and publicly," he noted.
Meanwhile, Dmitri Mehlhorn, a top Hoffman advisor, on Sunday wrote in an email to a few journalists that the Pennsylvania shooting incident "was encouraged and maybe even staged so Trump could get the photos and benefit from the backlash," according to a report in Semafor.
Both Hoffman and Mehlhorn donate to Democrats. Later, Mehlhorn on Sunday said that he regretted sending the email.
