California governor Gavin Newsom has accused Elon Musk of “encouraging looting” after the billionaire shared posts on his social media platform X that claimed the politician had “decriminalised” it.

“Stop encouraging looting by lying and telling people it’s decriminalized. It’s not,” Mr Newsom wrote on X, replying to one of the billionaire’s retweets.

“It’s illegal — as it always has been. Bad actors will be arrested and prosecuted.”

Mr Musk had shared a tweet in which Mr Newsom was filmed in an interview warning people against looting, but the caption read: “LOOTING: Newsom and California Democrats literally decriminalized looting, barring police from arresting looters and prosecutors from prosecuting them. Now he’s opposed to looting.”