A prominent anti-Semitism watchdog has alleged Elon Musk for making light of the Holocaust after he mocked his critics with a cryptic social media post filled with Nazi puns.
The owner of SpaceX, Tesla, and the social media platform X received widespread criticism on Monday when he raised his straightened right arm during Trump’s inauguration.
While some reacted to the gesture with light-hearted memes, others accused the business tycoon of performing a Nazi-era salute.
Musk has blamed “radical leftists” for the backlash. On Thursday, he made a satirical post on X that contained references to the leaders of Nazi Germany.
“Don’t say Hess to Nazi accusations! Some people will Goebbels anything down! Stop goering your enemies!” he wrote. “His pronouns would’ve been He/Himmler! Bet you did Nazi that coming.”
Podcaster Dave Rubin wrote in a comment to Musk’s post: “Humour is the fascist way to defeat these people!” Musk replied, "They can’t stand being mocked.”
The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) quickly condemned the businessman. “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,” ADL CEO Jonathan Greenblatt wrote on X on Thursday.
The ADL also released a separate statement, saying that “making inappropriate and highly offensive jokes that trivialise the Holocaust only serves to minimise the evil and inhumanity of Nazi crimes, denigrate the suffering of both victims and survivors and insult the memory of the six million Jews murdered in the Shoah.”
The Jewish advocacy firm previously defended Musk, saying the gesture was purely “out of enthusiasm and not a Nazi salute.”
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu also defended Musk while calling him “a great of Israel” who was being “falsely smeared.”
Musk travelled to Israel shortly after the deadly Hamas attack on October 7, 2023, which triggered the war in Gaza.
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