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.
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 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 said. “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 and made a video of his remarks that included footage of the salute his pinned post to his X account, making it the top item when users check his feed. He has also suggested the criticism is politically motivated, saying in one post “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,” the post said, followed by a cry-laughing emoji.
While Musk’s defenders online have said his salute was simply a clumsy attempt to illustrate what he was saying at the time, that his heart went out to his supporters, his critics did not see it that way.
Abraham Foxman, former executive director of the Anti-Defamation League, 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 site X, previously known as Twitter before Musk bought it.
“There’s no way to sugarcoat this. This is the Nazi salute. This is the Nazi f―-ing salute,” said Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) in an X post.
However, Foxman’s old group, the ADL, came to Musk’s defense. In a post Monday, it 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. This is a new beginning. Let’s hope for healing and work toward unity in the months and years ahead,” the group said.
The salute Monday was not the first time Musk or Twitter had been accused of sympathizing with antisemitic forces. Neither Netanyahu in his post or Musk in his 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 replied to a post that accused Jews of hating white people with “you have said the actual truth.”
During his visit, Israeli president Isaac Herzog told Musk, “Hatred of the Jews affects the behavior of people in many places around the world, and you have a huge role to play in this.”