Leave it to non-doctor Elon Musk to tweet an ill-thought-out, baseless, unscientific message regarding the cause behind Bronny James' cardiac arrest. While the rest of the world waits for actual facts from the actual professional medical experts treating Bronny at an actual hospital, lover of unfounded hearsay and armchair medical expert Musk decided to weigh in to his 149 million followers with his own ignorant, misinformation-spreading opinion.

It is not yet known what underlying medical conditions might have caused the 18-year-old eldest son of LeBron James to go into cardiac arrest during basketball practice at USC on Monday, but Musk was quick to dive into the rumor mill (and culture wars) on Twitter offering his own two crypto cents. Unfounded medical rumors began circulating and trending shortly after Bronny's health scare was revealed, suggesting a link between the COVID-19 vaccine and heart problems.

In responding to a tweet from a user implying one such instance of anecdotal evidence, Musk tweeted “We cannot ascribe everything to the vaccine, but, by the same token, we cannot ascribe nothing. Myocarditis is a known side-effect. The only question is whether it is rare or common.”

Actually, there is no question regarding that, Elon Musk — numerous experts agree (and medical studies support the evidence) that myocarditis is a rare side-effect of the COVID-19 vaccine. Further, there have been no reports of myocarditis being linked to cardiac arrest. If Bronny James had developed myocarditis as a result of getting a COVID vaccine, it most likely would have presented itself within a week or so after receiving the shot, not months or years later. And if he was never hospitalized for myocarditis after receiving the vaccine, it would be unlikely that he had asymptomatic myocarditis from the vaccine.

But maybe Elon Musk knows more than the American Heart Association and National Library of Medicine combined, even though he only attended Stanford University (undergrad, not medical school) for two days before dropping out.

If Musk wanted to somehow tie COVID into his medical opinion, he could have shared the actually factual statement that it is far more likely to contract myocarditis from the COVID virus itself rather than from the vaccine. But it's also possible whatever underlying medical issue Bronny James has is totally unrelated to COVID, and could be a result of a different virus or a genetic issue.

It's worth noting that this isn't the first COVID-related social media controversy involving the James family. In December 2021 when LeBron James contracted COVID, he posted the infamous Spider-Man meme of three separate Spider-Men pointing at each other, with one labeled “flu”, one labelled “covid” and one labeled “cold”. The implication seemed to be that James' COVID experience was similar to the flu or a common cold — and many users who had far more serious bouts of the virus found this offensive.

 

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Regardless of the cause of Bronny James' sudden and scary cardiac arrest, the only thing that's certain at this point is that Elon Musk is not a part of Bronny's medical team, so he has no idea what actually caused the health scare. By spreading rumors and medical misinformation, Musk is doing a disservice to his millions of followers, and everyone else for that matter.