CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida — SpaceX CEO Elon Musk donned a Marquis de Sade costume last night at a party.
Musk tweeted the above picture of himself in the costume early Monday morning along with the tweet: “Wore Marquis de Sade outfit for a party last night. Was v popular with women who’d read 50 Shades :)”
Ironically, the ‘Fifty Shades of Grey’ book to which Musk refers was briefly banned in Brevard County, the Florida county that encompasses the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station from where the historic SpaceX Dragon capsule launched aboard a Falcon 9 rocket last month.
The controversial book banning drew national attention and, in a letter to the Brevard County Director of Library Services Cathy Schweinsberg, The National Coalition Against Censorship, a broad national coalition of groups dedicated to defending free speech and the freedom to read headquartered in New York, N.Y., expressed its concern about the removal of E.L. James’ runaway bestseller Fifty Shades of Grey,from the Public Libraries in Brevard County, Florida and urged the library to honor its constitutional obligations and return the books to the shelves immediately.
The controversial bestselling book trilogy “Fifty Shades of Grey” by E.L. James returned to Brevard County Library System bookshelves in May.
Brevard County officials said the decision was in response to public demand, but also comes after considerable review and consideration by the library system. In all, 19 books from the “Fifty Shades of Grey” trilogy that were previously available will once again be available through the library system, according to Library Services Director Cathy Schweinsberg.
“Earlier this month [May], a decision was made to pull “Fifty Shades of Grey” from Brevard County libraries as a result of published reviews and our own initial analysis of the book and its controversial content,” Brevard County spokesman Don Walker said in an email. “Since then, we have begun a review of our selection criteria and that review continues even as the decision has been made to supply the book in response to requests by county residents.”
“We have always stood against censorship,” Schweinsberg said. “We have a long history of standing against censorship and that continues to be a priority for this library system.”
