Vice President Kamala Harris on Wednesday refused to speak about two hot-button issues, TikTok regulation and Elon Musk's recent promotion of an antisemitic conspiracy theory, despite the fact that the White House has taken strong stances on both topics.
"You don't have a specific view on TikTok itself?" CNBC Squawk Box host Andrew Ross Sorkin asked Harris at The New York Times' annual DealBook summit.
"I'm not commenting," Harris replied.
The vice president gave a similar answer to a question about Musk.
"We are going to have Elon Musk here later today," Ross Sorkin said. "The White House condemned what he said. What do you think of what he said? And what do you think of his trip [to Israel]?
"I have nothing to say about that," said Harris. Ross Sorkin was silent. "I have nothing to say about it," she repeated. "But I will say this: I'm not here to talk about people. I'm here to talk about issues."
The vice president's tight-lipped evasion stood in stark contrast to the vocal stances the Biden White House has taken on both TikTok and the Musk controversy.
The White House has outwardly supported a bill that would give President Joe Biden the power to ban TikTok due to its national security concerns. The Byte Dance owned TikTok has come under fire from government regulators, who say it lacks transparency and prevents the U.S. from knowing who has access to user data and what information is getting through to users.
Earlier this month, Musk boosted an antisemitic conspiracy theory on X, formerly Twitter, which claimed that Jewish communities push "dialectical hatred against whites." Musk replied in a post: "You have said the actual truth."
Musk apologized for this Wednesday during his own DealBook interview, saying it might have been "dumbest" post he has made on the platform. He also said he is "not antisemitic."
At the time of the Nov. 15 post, however, the White House publicly condemned Musk for appearing to support antisemitism on social media.
"We condemn this abhorrent promotion of antisemitic and racist hate in the strongest terms, which runs against our core values as Americans," said White House spokesman Andrew Bates.
The Biden administration also acknowledged that Tesla and SpaceX technology is important to U.S. national security. The Pentagon has commissioned contracts with Musk's companies to use his technology in combat, including in the ongoing war in Ukraine.
The vice president's office did not immediately respond to a request for comment on her DealBook interview.
Harris' silence comes as President Joe Biden's reelection campaign ramps up. The Biden campaign has said Harris will play a "key" role in the 2024 effort.