Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel’s prime minister, came to the defense of Tesla CEO Elon Musk, saying the tech entrepreneur was being unfairly tarnished by accusations of Nazi sympathies.
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Not long after, Musk made a pun-filled social media post using the names of infamous Nazi officials like Rudolf Hess and Joseph Goebbels.
In his post early Thursday, Netanyahu said Musk was being “falsely smeared,” responding to a post where Musk said he was being accused of being a Nazi after he made a gesture at a Donald Trump rally Monday that critics said was reminiscent of the infamous Nazi arm-extended salute.
“Elon is a great friend of Israel. He visited Israel after the October 7 massacre in which Hamas terrorists committed the worst atrocity against the Jewish people since the Holocaust,” Netanyahu wrote on X, the social media site formerly known as Twitter that Musk purchased in 2022. “He has since repeatedly and forcefully supported Israel’s right to defend itself against genocidal terrorists and regimes who seek to annihilate the one and only Jewish state.”
Musk has downplayed or made fun of the criticism. On his account on X, he pinned to the top of the page a video of his remarks that includes footage of the salute. He has also suggested the criticism is politically motivated, saying in one post that “the ‘everyone is Hitler’ attack is sooo tired.”
On Thursday, Musk posted a “thank you” to Netanyahu, and then not much later made a separate post indirectly referencing the controversy.
“Don’t say Hess to Nazi accusations! Some people will Goebbels anything down! Stop Gőring your enemies! His pronouns would’ve been He/Himmler! Bet you did nazi that coming,” Musk wrote, followed by a cry-laughing emoji.
The post drew fire from the head of the Anti-Defamation League, a prominent group that opposes antisemitism.
“We’ve said it hundreds of times before and we will say it again: the Holocaust was a singularly evil event, and it is inappropriate and offensive to make light of it. @elonmusk, the Holocaust is not a joke,” wrote ADL CEO Jonathan Greenblatt in a post Thursday afternoon.
His post was reshared by the official ADL account, which had earlier in the week extended Musk the benefit of the doubt regarding the salute gesture.
The Nexus Project, another group that fights antisemitism, was critical of Netanyahu’s defense of Musk.
“Prime Minister Netanyahu has a long history of excusing antisemitic rhetoric and actions from those he considers political allies, while Elon Musk has a long track record of promoting white nationalist and antisemitic ideas and conspiracies,” the group’s national director, Jonathan Jacoby, said in a statement. “Jewish people worldwide can see both clearly.”
While Musk’s defenders online have said his salute was simply a clumsy attempt to illustrate what he was saying at that moment ― that his heart went out to his supporters ― his critics did not see it that way.
Abraham Foxman, a former director of the ADL, called it “a very disconcerting image.”
“Elon Musk may be the world’s richest man but that does not excuse his thanking the Trump supporters with a Heil Hitler Nazi salute,” Foxman posted on social media.
“There’s no way to sugarcoat this. This is the Nazi salute. This is the Nazi f―ing salute,” Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) wrote in an X post.
Initially, the ADL had come to Musk’s defense. In a post on Monday, the group said Musk had made “an awkward gesture in a moment of enthusiasm, not a Nazi salute.”
“In this moment, all sides should give one another a bit of grace, perhaps even the benefit of the doubt, and take a breath,” the post read. “This is a new beginning. Let’s hope for healing and work toward unity in the months and years ahead.”
The salute Monday was not the first time that Musk or his social media platform had been accused of sympathizing with antisemitic forces. Neither Netanyahu, in his post defending Musk, nor Musk, in his own post thanking Netanyahu, mentioned the circumstances under which Musk visited Israel in November 2023.
The visit came after Musk was criticized for allowing antisemitic content to bloom on X, and after he had written “You have said the actual truth” in response to a post that accused Jews of hating white people.
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