Tesla CEO Elon Musk praises Trump for limiting 'gain-of-function' research, says ‘No more funding to….’

Donald Trump recently signed an executive order that limits federal funding for research involving a controversial field of scientific study known as “gain-of-function” research. Responding to it, Tesla CEO and owner of X Elon Musk said “This is great. No more funding “research” that kills millions of people!”. “The real name for “gain of function” is death maximization. That’s what Fauci was actually researching,” he further added.Gain-of-function (GOF) research refers to scientific experiments where researchers deliberately alter an organism—usually a virus, bacterium, or other microbe—to give it new or enhanced abilities. These "gained functions" might include making the organism more infectious, more deadly, able to infect new species (like jumping from animals to humans), or resistant to treatments.The research, which is also known as "dual-use" research, has long been controversial because of fears that scientists could make a more dangerous pathogen in their lab that could get out and cause a pandemic. Those concerns have led to many efforts over the years to more tightly monitor and control this research.Debate around gain-of-function research started in 2014 when the then US government stopped giving money to experiments that could make viruses more dangerous. Trump, during his first term lifted the ban in 2017 and set up a new system to review risky research.The debate reignited during the COVID-19 pandemic. President Donald Trump and other leaders have said that this kind of research might be linked to how COVID-19 started, claiming the virus was made in a lab in Wuhan, China. Signing the executive order to restrict federal funding for gain-of-function research, Trump said, "I think I said it from the beginning — that it leaked out," and suggested that a scientist could have spread it while meeting people outside.