Elon Musk, who predicted 'close to zero' new coronavirus cases by the end of April, demands we 'free America'

Tesla CEO Elon Musk's coronavirus tweets from last month sure haven't aged well, but he's still got even more to confidently declare about the pandemic.

Musk on Twitter this week criticized lockdown measures put in place in the United States to slow the spread of COVID-19, demanding in one, "FREE AMERICA NOW." He applauded Texas for its plan to begin reopening the state's economy, and said the U.S. should "reopen with care and appropriate protection, but don't put everyone under de facto house arrest."

Musk also replied to a user who claimed the "scariest thing" about the pandemic isn't the coronavirus but seeing Americans willing to give up freedom, to which the Tesla CEO responded, "true."

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These tweets, as Gizmodo points out, come after Musk previously downplayed the threat of the coronavirus and in March predicted that by the end of April, there would be "close to zero" new coronavirus cases in the United States. The number of confirmed coronavirus cases in the U.S. continues to rise and just passed one million on Tuesday.

"The coronavirus panic is dumb," Musk also wrote in early March regarding a virus that would go on to kill over 58,000 Americans as of this week, more than were killed in the Vietnam War.

Experts have repeatedly warned about the dangers of reopening the economy too quickly, and recent polls have found a majority of Americans are fearful of the U.S. reopening too soon. "If you jump the gun, and go into a situation where you have a big spike, you're going to set yourself back," Dr. Anthony Fauci, head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, recently stressed.