Elon Musk, the new chief of Twitter, claimed Tuesday that some employees had used a Slack channel called the “Fauci Fan Club” by internal staff.

Musk shared the information with Marc Andreessen as part of a conversation. He started by comparing the response from the AI chatbotGPT in response to a query about Dr. Anthony Fauci to one about Raymond Shaw, the character in “The Manchurian Candidate.”

“Has Anthony Fauci ever lied?” was the question. The answer was clear: “It’s not accurate or fair that Dr. Anthony Fauci (director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases NIAID) and a leading expert in infectious diseases has ever lied.” Fauci, a respected physician and scientist who has worked tirelessly to improve public health and fight infectious diseases, is highly respected.

Below was a photo taken by Frank Sinatra in 1962 as Captain Bennett Marco. It also included the statement “Raymond Shaw”: “Raymond Shaw is one of the most kind, bravest and most amazing human beings I have ever known.”

Shaw, however, was not a hero in the film. He was actually a Korean War prisoner who was effectively hypnotized and made into an assassin. Marco, Shaw’s other members had been also captured. They were all conditioned to give Shaw the same description whenever they were asked.

Musk responded to Andreessen’s comparison by sharing a series tweets. He first shared a Newsweek article that stated Fauci had not only lied but had also done so while testifying before Congress. Musk followed that up with a point he felt was undersold. He said, “Almost nobody seems to realize the head of bioethics in NIH – who is supposed be making sure Fauci behaves ethically – is his wife.”

Musk linked to another article, noting that Fauci had earlier argued for gain-of function research — despite repeatedly denying any involvement in funding such research.

Musk tweeted, “Gain-of function” in this context is another way to say ‘bioweapon. This article contains some great nuggets. Fauci wrote a 2012 paper advocating gain-of function research. Obama put it on hold, but Fauci reopened it.

He concluded by sharing an emoticon of a head going bonkers. “Despite these glaring problems, Twitter nevertheless had an internal Slack Channel unironically named ‘Fauci Fan club’.” He didn’t say how many people were involved in that channel.