Elon Musk reacts to FEMA focusing on equity: 'Saving American lives should be priority #1'

Elon Musk reacted Sunday to a clip of a Federal Emergency Management Agency meeting about implementing equity into the agency's operations.

"Saving American lives should be priority #1," Musk in response to a video shared on X of a 2023titled "Helping LGBTQIA+ Survivors Before Disasters: Preparedness and Mitigation Considerations."

Musk's comment comes on the heels of FEMA's heavily criticized response to Hurricane Helene, which left communities in western North Carolina and elsewhere in Appalachia ravaged by flooding.

An account called "End Wokeness" a clip of the meeting, captioning it with two sentences presented as quotes from the speakers. One reads "we should focus our efforts on LGBTQIA people... they struggled before the storm."

The account also quoted a speaker as saying "FEMA relief is no longer about getting the greatest good for the greatest amount of people.... It's about disaster equity."

Nobody in the clip spoke either of those sentences, but the speakers did discuss how FEMA's principles have changed to focus on equity rather than "utilitarian principles."

"The shift that we're seeing right now is a shift in emergency management from utilitarian principles, where everything is designed for the greatest good for the greatest amount of people, to disaster equity," Maggie Jarry said.

A LinkedIn account for Jarry shows she is a senior emergency management specialist with the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration.

Jarry added that "we have to do more" and review policies that have allegedly disadvantaged certain groups.

"This topic is intersecting, I think, with a number of other topics where we have to look at policies and understand to what extent they have disadvantaged communities that have less assets, communities that have preexisting vulnerabilities in accessing disaster-related recovery supports," she said.

Earlier in the video, FEMA Emergency Management Specialist Tyler Atkins said he is discussing problems the LGBTQIA+ community faces during natural disasters since society as a whole is not.

"They already have their own things to deal with, so you add a disaster on top of that – It's just compounding on itself," he said. "And, I think that is maybe the 'why' of why we're having these discussions."

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