Portland Trail Blazers big man Enes Kanter continues to publicly decry the Turkish government and its president, Tayyip Erdogan, and it appears he has the backing of John Cusack. After Kanter challenged the world’s richest man, Elon Musk, for taking a meeting with Erdogan over a partnership between Turkey and SpaceX on space technology, Cusack chimed in, too, with the hopes of explaining why the two have a mutually beneficial partnership.
Yo @elonmusk !!
Y’all planing to build the first jail in Mars or something ? https://t.co/L78tQwmBBk
— Enes FREEDOM (@EnesFreedom) January 28, 2021
The Dictators sell the lithium and the bauxite – https://t.co/TkDaQad3Ke
— John Cusack (@johncusack) January 29, 2021
For those wondering, bauxite is the rock that aluminum comes from, and lithium is well, lithium. It powers batteries and the like, something that would very obviously be beneficial to someone like Musk, whose has a number of business ventures (Tesla, SpaceX, etc.) that would benefit from an agreement that makes it easier to produce batteries. This is, unsurprisingly, nowhere near the first time that Cusack has used his social media presence to criticize Musk.
It’s also far from the first time Kanter has challenged Erdogan. The Turkish government revoked Kanter’s passport back in 2017 and threatened to arrest him if he comes near the country. Erdogan’s people have even accused Kanter’s family of terrorism. Even after all that — plus the Turkish government targeting his New York sports camps in 2019 — Kanter remains dedicated to calling out Erdogan for numerous human rights violations, including jailing political opponents and violently responding to protests by the Turkish people.